A Question of Honor
by gietzeng
Summary: Sequel to Pity the Child: In the wake of the attack on Balamb Garden, SeeD attempts to reconstruct and confront the foe who has dogged it from the shadows. Please R&R (Complete)
1. Prologue

**Prologue 1: Persistence of Memory**

He dreamt, and his nightmares brought him things too horrible to contemplate.

He dreamt of Balamb Garden, overrun by an antique attack force called The Storm.  They fell from the sky like raindrops, descending on his Garden in unstoppable waves.  No matter how hard the SeeDs fought, they found themselves pressed back, victims of an enemy that ceased to exist twenty years ago.

He dreamt of fighting through the halls, watching the once serene Garden transform into a war zone, every inch contested and inevitably conquered by The Storm.  Ultimately, Squall ordered the evacuation of Garden, fleeing with whatever troops he could save, abandoning the rest to their fates.

He dreamt of the enormous dragon-ship, identical in every way to the _Ragnarok,_ but piloted with murderous intent.  The black-and-red ship roared through the peaceful sky, claiming the life of a trainload of junior cadets.

He dreamt of death, dishonor, betrayal, cowardice, and failure.  Always, behind it all, underscoring his nightmare, he heard the laughter.  The laughter that he knew would never leave his ears -- an insane, mocking sound that would haunt him forever.

The face came next, its burning eye drilling a hole into him.  The face smiled at him, grinning madly.

"More blood," it promised him.  "More."

In that eye, Squall saw Balamb Garden – his Garden – and everyone and everything he'd left behind.  And he saw it all burn.

*          *

Squall awoke with a start.  Disoriented and in an unfamiliar setting, he started casting about, trying to get his bearings.

"It's okay," came Rinoa's soft voice.  "You're safe."

He felt her hand on his head, stroking his hair, and slowly started to regain his senses.  He'd fallen asleep on kneeling on the floor of the _Ragnarok, _with his head resting in her lap.  As reason and memory came flooding back to him, he wished he could remain in blissful ignorance.

"It's all real, isn't it?" he asked.  "It really happened."

"Yeah," she replied, her voice choked.  "It did."

**Prologue 2: Poor Wandering One**

Laguna looked up from the documents in front of him as Kiros pressed his way into the office.

"People usually make a pretense of knocking, Kiros," Laguna said.

"No time," Kiros answered, moving quickly towards Laguna's desk.  "I just received a distress call from the _Ragnarok."_

"What?" Laguna asked, level of concern skyrocketing.  "What does it say?"

Kiros pressed the paper into Laguna's hand.

"Balamb Garden taken by hostiles," it read.  "Request asylum."

"That's it?" Laguna inquired, looking up.  "They didn't say anything else?"

"The ship transmitted it over an encrypted channel, along with a tremendous amount of noise.  Whatever's going on, they didn't want anyone to know where they were headed."

"That sounds like Squall," Laguna said, thinking aloud.  "No one else would have bothered to smother the message with noise, but Squall would rather risk us losing the message than have it be intercepted."

"I'll have the airstation prepare for their arrival.  You want me to get your car ready, so you can meet them yourself?"

Laguna nodded distractedly, worrying at the wedding band he wore.  "Have a medical team on hand, too.  To attend to any injuries."

Kiros nodded and left the room, giving Laguna a chance to say a brief prayer.

"Raine," he said, whispering, eyes closed.  "Wherever you are, I hope you're keeping our boy safe."

 *         *

The _Ragnarok touched down in the Esthar Airstation, and in short order Squall exited the ship, alone, to speak to Laguna._

Laguna, flanked by Kiros and Ward, immediately noticed the difference in Squall.  His normally rigid, military demeanor had vanished.  He slumped, shrank in on himself, walked with an unsteady step.  Nevertheless, he had no visible injuries, and a relieved Laguna dashed forward to sweep him up in a hug.

"I'm so glad you're all right," said Laguna.

"I've been better," Squall replied.

Laguna stepped back and said, "You're here now.  What can I do to help?"

Squall tried to muster some strength for the retelling of the day's events.  "Earlier today, Balamb Garden was invaded and overtaken.  We had to flee.  Those of us aboard the _Ragnarok are the only known escapees.  Everyone else is either dead or captured.  I'm here to request shelter, at least until we figure out where else we can go."_

"Laguna..." Kiros said, placing his hand on the President's arm.

"Done," Laguna said, overriding whatever warning Kiros almost issued.  "You and your friends are welcome to stay at the palace, and we'll make accommodations for the rest of your troops in the army barracks.  You can sleep off whatever happened, and we'll discuss the rest when you're ready."

"Thank you," Squall said, breathing a deep sigh of relief.  "Thank you."

**Prologue 3: Tomorrow Belongs to Me**

He sat in perfect silence, eye closed.  Balamb Garden – the entire Garden – belonged to him now, and he reveled in it.  Slowly, he opened his one eye, looking around the room, the office formerly occupied by Squall Leonhart, Seed Commander.

His hand brushed over the surface of Squall's desk with something akin to reverence.  He could feel the power in this room, the energy that Squall exuded.  Squall had shown himself a worthy opponent, fighting to the last.  Crushing Leonhart would prove enjoyable.

General Mallis – onetime Garden Master, now dictator of Balamb Garden – stood, polished black armor moving fluidly with him.  He descended to the lobby like a god come to walk among his people.

The prisoners his troops had taken knelt before him.  He'd given the order to force the prisoners to kneel shortly after the fighting ceased.  At first, the order seemed odd to his troops, but within hours, the horrible, searing pain set in, and the prisoners started begging to move.  They knelt throughout the night, and into the morning, and anyone who moved, or passed out from the pain received a savage beating.

Now, Mallis, the traitor in their midst, stood before them.  "You may cease kneeling," he said waiting for a moment while his prisoners – subjects, he corrected himself – shifted to a sitting position.

"It should be clear by now that you have been abandoned.  Leonhart has deserted you.  You are forgotten.  Presumed dead.  You are mine now.  Those of you who obey me will find your lives made much easier.  Those who resist me will find their punishments infinitely harsh.  You may now resume kneeling until noontime, when you will each be given a half-ration of food.  That is all."

Mallis slowly scanned the room again, watching in sadistic glee as the prisoners struggled to stay on their knees.  He picked out faces from the crowd, scattered individuals.  Doctor Kadowaki.  Workers from the cafeteria.  Then his eyes lit on a silver-haired woman wearing an eye patch.

"You," he said, pointing at her from the steps.  "You."  He took the steps two at a time, shoving people aside to get to her.   "On your feet."  She stood slowly, unsteadily, but the venom in her eye as she looked at him never wavered.  "You are Fujin, correct?"

She stared at him, unblinking.

"Answer me!" he screamed.

She continued to stare, refusing to answer.

"Answer, damn you!"  He lashed out, backhanding her across the face, sending her sprawling.  "Stand her up!" he snapped to the guards.  They rushed over to her, reaching down to help her up.

As they did, Fujin grabbed at one, pulling him forward with all his weight and crashing him into his partner.  They fell, unconscious, to the floor.  She stood up, of her own accord, staring again at Mallis, who smiled at her, the smile of a predator.  Both seemed oblivious to the presence of the other guards, all with their guns trained on Fujin.

"Nicely done," Mallis said.  "I think you'll want to talk to me, though," he said, closing on her.  "You see," he whispered, directly in her ear.  "I know how you lost your eye."

Fujin's hatred turned to suspicion.  She clearly didn't trust the man, but somehow, he'd touched on the biggest mystery in her life: the question of her missing eye.

"What do you think of me now?" he grinned, standing back, arms folded across his chest.

Fujin slowly wiped the blood away from the corner of her mouth.  "PSYCHOTIC."

**Prologue 4:  Epiphany**

Squall sat at one end of a conference table, waiting for Laguna to arrive.  At Laguna's request, he'd brought Quistis, Seifer, Irvine, Selphie, Zell, Nida, and Xu.  Still numb from the shock of Garden's conquest, they sat in silence.  After several minutes, Seifer dared break the quiet.

"We... have some good news for you, Squall," he said.  "Do you want to tell him, Selphie?"

A full thirty seconds passed before the brunette even registered the question.  Her eyes flickered upward briefly, and she shrugged, the gesture barely perceptible.  Seeing the death of the junior cadets had taken an especially heavy toll on her.  She and Raijin had escaped the train mere moments before Mallis destroyed it, and the resulting guilt reduced her to a state of near-catatonia.

"Well," Seifer said, seeing that Selphie wouldn't answer, "it's a little something that Selphie, Xu, and I cooked up, in case some unforeseen circumstance ever cropped up.  Like this one."

Squall nodded, weary.

"Remember the security matrix that I had brought aboard the _Ragnarok_ when we evacuated?"

"Sure," Squall answered, remembering the black box Seifer had handcuffed to an aid.

"We built in a little something special back at Garden.  At the start of every week, I'd decide on a new passcode and enter it into the security station.  Now, if the passcode isn't changed once a week, the security station automatically broadcasts all of its data to the security matrix."

Squall sat upright, suddenly interested.  "Which we possess."

"Exactly."

"What sort of information do we get access to?"

"We get full records of which doors are used and when.  If any specific areas of the building are under lockdown.  Elevator usage.  Things like that.  It's not much, but I'm sure with a top intelligence agent," here, Seifer leaned across the table to squeeze Selphie's hand – again, she barely reacted – "we can make use of it."

"What about the security cameras, can we get access to those?"

"No," Seifer said, pursing his lips thoughtfully.  That requires a direct feed into the security mainframe, and I didn't have a chance to open one before we evacuated.  Even if we had one, it wouldn't be all-encompassing.  Security cameras only cover the more public areas of Garden.  The offices don't have them, the dorm rooms don't have them..."

"Well, we can use what we have."

"And what do we do in the present?" Quistis asked.  "I mean, not only are we personally homeless, but we're homeless and responsible for the well-being of everyone we escaped with.  I'm sure some of them have families, but plenty were orphans like us.  What do we do about them?"

"That's what we're here to find out," Squall said.

The door opened and Laguna entered, flanked by Kiros and Ward.  As they walked the length of the room, Laguna gently put his hand on Selphie's shoulder.  She smiled briefly, and then the smile faded as he walked away.  The three men took their places, with Laguna at the head of the table and Kiros at his right hand.  Ward, as usual, preferred to stand in a corner of the room.

Laguna took a long look around the room.  He could see the strain on the faces of the people gathered before him.  His son's friends – his son's family, and, by extension, his own family.  People for whom he'd come to care.  He wanted to say something, anything, to ease their pain, but he knew no words could calm their minds.  To business, then.

"Okay, guys, I can see you're in no mood for small talk, so why don't we just get right to the point," he said.  "Start by giving me a rundown of what happened."

"Basically," Squall said, "it's what I told you the other day.  Garden was attacked and overrun, we were forced to flee, and the people you are now sheltering are all that managed to escape.  I held two significant details back, however.

First, the force that attacked us.  Nida managed to identify them as something called The Storm.  Sound familiar?"

Laguna, Kiros, and Ward, all looked dumbfounded.

"That's impossible," Kiros said.  "The Storm was Adel's invasion force.  Key word: Adel's.  It's been defunct for twenty years."

"Explain this, then," Squall replied, tapping a few buttons on the panel in front of him.  Images popped up on the panels in front of everyone – one of the massive dropships that had delivered The Storm to Balamb Garden, and the other of soldiers dressed in midnight blue armor from Adel's empire.

"That's The Storm, all right," Kiros answered, "but..."

"These are images from the invasion of Balamb Garden.  They're less than a week old."

"It's impossible," Kiros repeated, whispering.

"The other thing is this," Squall continued, calling up the next image: the _Apocalypse, sister-ship to the __Ragnarok, painted black and red.  "Do you recognize it?"_

"Of course!"  Laguna exclaimed.  "It's one of ours!  But ours were all red, like the _Ragnarok."_

"It's the _Apocalypse," Squall continued.  "Any idea how someone would get one of your ships?"_

"You did," Kiros said.

Squall ignored the remark.  "Somehow, our Garden Master had this antique Esthar technology and one of your ships.  And when I asked him why he was attacking Garden, he said, 'sins of the father.'"  Squall turned to Laguna. "Does that mean anything to you?"

"No," Laguna replied.  "Anytime I ever dealt with SeeD, it was through you.  Once or twice through Cid, but almost always through you."

"I thought so."

"So who is this Garden Master?" Kiros asked.

"His name is General Yvaine Mallis.  All we know about him is that he started out in the military -- but we don't know where -- and then he ran a mercenary organization called Omega Dawn.  This is his picture."

Squall called up a picture from the _Ragnarok's _databanks – a snapshot taken during ship-to-ship communication.

Laguna and Kiros peered intently at the picture.

"Well," Squall asked, "do you recognize him?"

Both men shook their heads slowly as they continued to gaze at the picture, as if he seemed familiar, but they couldn't place him.  Ward, however, made a sound deep in his throat, and walked quickly over to where Laguna sat.

Quickly moving Laguna out of the way, Ward started pressing buttons on the panel, his enormous fingers seeming almost too large for the keys.  Still, they proved surprisingly dexterous, and in moments, another picture appeared next to Mallis'.

The face seemed remarkably different – twenty years younger, covered in ritualistic scars, no hair on the head.  The facial structure seemed different, too.  Squall tried to imagine the effects of time and reconstructive surgery.  But still, he could see the madness blazing in that lone eye, and he knew he looked at the same man.

"So who was this guy?" he asked.

Kiros, Laguna, and Ward all shared a concerned look, before Laguna started to tell the tale.

"Have you ever heard of Justinian Varrant?"

"Should we have?" Squall replied.

*          *

"The story of your missing eye begins almost twenty years ago," Mallis said, seated regally in Squall's chair, behind Squall's desk, in Squall's office.  Fujin stared at the man, trying to gauge the distance, assessing whether she could successfully attack him from where she sat, handcuffed, on the other side of the desk.  "It begins during the reign of the Sorceress Adel, the wisest and most powerful ruler the world has ever known..."

In one clean motion, Fujin leapt to her feet, jumping atop the desk.  With her hands still in restraints, she could do nothing but lash outward at Mallis, her booted foot kicking straight forward in a snap kick that should have shattered his jaw.

The kick never connected.

Moving like a blur, one of Mallis' hands shot up to grab Fujin's foot, stopping it from moving towards him.  He proceeded to squeeze her ankle, and Fujin felt his powerful grip cutting off the circulation.  "I wouldn't advise trying that again," he said.  "Next time, I'll have to hurt you."  He shoved her backwards, in a casual gesture, giving her no more thought then he would to brushing off a fly.  The force of his push carried her off the desk and dumped her unceremoniously on the floor.

"As I was saying," he continued, ignoring Fujin as she stood up and took her seat, "Adel was the wisest and most powerful ruler in the world and I was..."

*          *

"Justinian Varrant," Laguna said, "the man you know as Garden Master Mallis, was Adel's Captain of the Guard."

"That's putting it mildly," Kiros added.  "He was her hatchet man, her spymaster, her assassin.  He expanded the Royal Guard into a secret police force. They could go anywhere, do anything – accuse citizens of crimes and throw them in jail without benefit of charge or trial.  Interrogate them for days on end.  Manufacture evidence.  You name it – if it was unethical and inhumane, they had a hand in it, and Varrant was the worst of the lot."

Laguna turned to Squall.  "He was the one who organized the mission to kidnap Ellone."

"So what happened to him?" Zell, who'd never trusted "Mallis," asked.  "How'd he wind up our Garden Master?"

*          *

"And I served her loyally and faithfully," Mallis said, eye fixed on an invisible point over Fujin's shoulder, as if he could still see Adel.  "Until _he _came along."

"HE?"

"Laguna Loire.  The man who took my Empress from me.  The man who overthrew Adel."

*          *

"When we fought to bring down Adel, naturally, we had to go through Varrant – Mallis, sorry – to get to her," Laguna said.  "And he didn't go down without a fight."

"So he attacked us to get back at you?" Zell asked.  "Delayed reaction."

"There's more," Laguna added.  "He was more than the Captain of the Guard.  He was Knight to the Sorceress Adel."

*          *

"For seventeen years I had to listen to the tortured screams of my queen as she writhed, entombed in space," Mallis said, "all so that buffoon Loire could place himself upon the throne.  What does he know of leadership?  What does he know about greatness?  And then his bastard child comes along and frees my Sorceress, only to kill her.  Now, she doesn't speak to me at all.  Not even in my dreams."

"BORED.  EYE.  NOW."

"Of course, my dear," Mallis said, attention snapping back to Fujin.  "You see, the Sorceress Adel felt it was crucially important to test the loyalty of those around her.  I, as her Knight, was not exempt.  Quite the opposite.

"I remember kneeling before her on the day.  She sat high and proud on her throne, as always, looking down at me.  I outranked everyone else in Esthar, could have had anyone I wanted killed or tortured at my tiniest whim, and yet each time the Empress summoned me, I trembled with fear.

"'My Knight,' she said, 'I want you to prove your devotion to me.'  Here, a servant came forth with a velvet pillow bearing a dagger made of blackest obsidian.  'Put out your eye,' she commanded.'"

"AND?" Fujin pressed.

Mallis pointed to an empty eye socket.

"I did as she asked.  And she laughed.  The sound was like music, filling the room.  Next, a servant brought forth an infant, still in swaddling clothes.  As the blood poured down my face, my Sorceress demanded that I put out the eye of this tiny child."

"ME."  Fujin whispered.

"You," Mallis confirmed, smiling.  "My daughter."

**Prologue 5:  The ****New World******

"Okay," Squall said, "for now, this changes nothing.  Our immediate goals are still the same: to find a base of operations.  We'll worry about this new information later."

Laguna turned and nodded to Kiros, who spoke for the Esthar delegation.  "We – as representatives of the Esthar government – are prepared to offer you refugee status and political asylum here in Esthar.  However, we reserve the right to revoke this status at anytime if we feel it is becoming dangerous to the country.  We may revoke the right of asylum either as it applies to an individual, or to SeeD as a whole, understood?"

"That seems fair enough," Squall replied.

"Obviously," Kiros continued, "you can't take any missions which place you in a position to harm Esthar or any of its citizens."

"Understood, but you don't get the right to approve our contracts in advance.  You'll have to accept it on faith."

Kiros thought for a long moment and then let out a sharp exclamation of pain as Laguna kicked him under the table.  "Fine.  But I want you to understand that you are now officially subject to the laws of Esthar.  You're in our jurisdiction.  One of your people breaks the rules, and we mete out punishment."

Squall frowned.  "That flies in the face of the entire Garden system.  We've always dealt with such matters internally, and no country has ever had a problem with it before."

"Yes," Kiros nodded.  "But that was when you had a Garden.  Now, you're entirely dependent on us.  We're according you refugee status, we're offering you shelter, we're taking the risks to protect you from someone who's potentially a very dangerous threat to the stability of our government, so you're hardly in a position to dictate terms."

Squall shook his head.  "Granted."  He heard the gasps of surprise from his friends, and knew that he had to focus on the larger picture: securing the safety of the escaped SeeDs.  "We'll accept your terms, gratefully."

"I have a better idea," Laguna said, voice distant, speaking as if from the sidelines.

"Laguna..." Kiros said, and edge of warning in his voice.

"I think we can find a better compromise," Laguna continued.  "One that gives you a place to stay, lets you keep your independence, and will give you a base of operations."

"Laguna, can I borrow you for a minute?" Kiros asked, standing up and grabbing Laguna by the arm.  Along with Ward, the two men left the room hurriedly.

"Problem, Kiros?" Laguna said sweetly once the door had closed behind them.

"Damn right, there's a problem.  I hate it when you sandbag me like this.  We could at least discuss these things in advance."

"I'm the President.  We don't have to discuss them at all."

"Look," Kiros said, "I just question the wisdom of having our country – and you in particular – getting politically entangled with these refugees, who, by the way, happen to be the sworn enemies of Justinian-freaking-Varrant!"

"No matter how you slice it, we're entangled, just by the fact that Squall's my son.  You heard what Varrant told him: 'sins of the father.'  If we do things my way, we'll give Squall and his SeeDs a chance to build up their strength again, and they can get rid of Varrant," Laguna explained 

Ward frowned, stroking his chin reflectively.

"The big guy has a good point," Kiros said.  "What makes you so sure they can bring Varrant down?  He routed them last time.  And if he has access to The Storm's gear, and the _Apocalypse, _there's no telling what sort of resources he has at his disposal."

"He had the advantage of surprise last time: the next time, they'll be prepared.  And they'll be fighting for their home, and for the freedom of all their friends who are trapped there.  Trust me.  It'll work."

_I hope, he added, silently._

Kiros turned to look at Ward, who nodded his assent.  Kiros turned back.  "Okay, chief.  You've sold us.  Just, in the future, try to refrain from these little surprises."

They re-entered the conference room, and resumed their original positions.

"Sorry for the interruption," Laguna said.  "Emergency strategy session."

"Understandable," Squall said.

"As I mentioned, I think there's a solution which can mutually benefit both our groups.  There are, of course, certain conditions attached, but I think you'll find the end result quite satisfactory."

Laguna punched a button and the large display screen at the head of the room slid down, displaying a vast expanse of the barren plain that made up the continent of Esthar.  He paused in childlike glee, trying to convey the cool air of a magician demonstrating that he had nothing up his sleeve.  He pressed another button and the ground and sky started to ripple, distorted as if by an intense heat mirage.  One by one, the miraculous panels that made up Esthar's camouflage system switched off, revealing a sprawling campus, a marvel of glass and steel.

"We're calling it," Laguna paused for dramatic effect, "Esthar Garden."

Squall immediately sat up and took notice.  "The catch?"

"Minor," Laguna replied.  "Esthar Garden is yours.  You operate under the same rules as any other Garden, with one exception: you train our special forces as well.  Military, intelligence, that sort of thing.  While they're at your Garden, they're yours to command.  We maintain very high standards and a very small force, so it won't be an overwhelming number to deal with.  Does that sound like you can handle it?"

Squall turned to consult with his team.  Meeting with nothing but nods of approval, including a weak smile from Selphie, he turned back to Laguna.

"Yes.  Thank you."

"Excellent," Laguna said.  "I can take you on a tour of the facilities now, if you'd like."

As people filtered out of the room, Squall approached Laguna and asked, "Laguna, I was wondering if... I... could ask you a personal favor?"

"Sure," Laguna shot back, grinning.  "Because you haven't dipped into the favor bank at all today."

"No," Squall said.  "This is... personal."

"Relax," Laguna said, putting his hand on Squall's arm.  Thinking better of it, he removed his hand, and said, "What can I do for you?"

"I was wondering if there was some job you could find for Rinoa?  Back at Garden – Balamb Garden – I mean, she was a tutor, but I was wondering if you might have something here that's a little more suited to her.  Preferably something that we can use as a way to keep her safe if things with Mallis blow up."

"Tell you what," Laguna replied.  "Now that the Galbadia has become the Galbadian Republic – or whatever their flavor of the month is, we'll have to restructure the embassy.  I can probably find work for her in the diplomatic corps, which would grant her consular immunity all around.  Sound good?"

"That would be great," Squall said.  "Thanks again."

"No problem," Laguna said as they exited in to the hallway, where the entire group awaited them.  "Okay, gang, you all ready to see Esthar Garden?  Don't you just love saying that?" he asked, launching into one of his monologues.  Squall could see that Laguna had stored up enough air in his lungs to talk for at least fifteen minutes solid before he had to take a breath.  "Say it with me.  _Esthar_Garden__._  Don't roll your eyes at me, Squall.  You know, I originally wanted to call it the 'Laguna Loire Memorial Garden, but then Kiros told me that in order to have the word 'Memorial' in there, I had to be dead, but he'd be willing to arrange it!  Can you believe that?  So anyway... where was I?"_


	2. The Little Things You Do Together

The lightning flashed, brilliantly illuminating the skyline of Galbadia City, renamed since the coup that ousted the Deling family from power.  Rain poured down angrily, in sheets, like nature itself had come to cleanse the city of its sins.  It pooled on the streets below, sending man and beast scattering for cover.

As people on the streets below ducked inside shops, under awnings, covered themselves with newspapers – took any action possible, in short, to avoid the torrential downpour, one man had totally distanced himself from the rain.  His footsteps pounded over their heads, as he ran from rooftop to rooftop, pressing himself ever harder in pursuit of his quarry.

All Seifer could see was the vague, stoop-shouldered outline of the thing he'd steadily pursued across the rooftops for nearly twenty minutes now.  It moved quickly, unflaggingly, never allowing Seifer a chance to rest or catch his breath.  Not that he needed to rest – he'd thrown himself into the hunt, and only the death of hunter or hunted would satisfy him.

The chase neared the edge of yet another rooftop, and Seifer smiled grimly.  This time, his prey had no avenue of escape, not unless it fell to the street below.  The next building rose high into the sky, its rooftop inaccessible.  Man or beast, this thing had terrorized the Galbadian slums for the better part of six months, eluding police and even the military before they condescended to contact SeeD.  And now Seifer had the thing cornered.

A flash of lightning, and the shape before Seifer had vanished.  He rushed to the edge of the building and looked down to the street.  Nothing.

He looked up, and saw a shadow turning lazy, ascending circles in the sky.

"Shit," he muttered.  "It flies."

Without giving himself time to think, Seifer backed up a few steps and took a running leap, hurling himself across the gap between buildings.  With a crash, he shattered the window of an apartment several floors below, much to the surprise of the woman inhabiting it.

"Stairs!" he yelled, shouting his command before she could think to scream.

"Wha... what?" she stammered.

"Stairs!" he repeated, losing patience, and time.

"Out the door, to the right."

In a flash, he vanished, thundering down the hall and up the stairs.  Floor after floor passed beneath him, but he never allowed himself to flag, despite the fact that he'd kept himself running for well over thirty minutes now.  

He reached the rain-swept rooftop only to find it empty, with no sign of his quarry.  Drawing his gunblade, he carefully started to scan the area, looking for signs of anything amiss.  Despite the brilliant neon signs of the Galbadian night, his only true illumination came from the occasional flash of lightning.

The trail had gone cold.  If the creature had landed on the rooftop, the rain had already washed away any trace of it.  The thing could have flown off into the night, leaving Seifer with no way to pursue it.

But this creature hadn't fled.  Seifer knew it – something deep in his stomach told him the hunter did not intend to walk away from its hunting ground.  The thing had intelligence, combined with a fierce predatory instinct and the cunning to ambush the unwary.  Seifer had walked into its trap.  He smiled again, and adjusted his grip on Hyperion.

Lightning flashed again, close this time, and for a moment, Seifer could see the entire rooftop in perfect clarity.  All appeared normal with the exception of one incongruous detail: a gargoyle, perched on the edge of the building.

This, by itself, he didn't consider unusual.  In their governmental love of excess, the Deling regime had overspent wherever possible, making even tenement buildings ornate, elaborate, beautifully decorated works of artifice.  No, the presence of the gargoyle itself fell within the realm of plausibility.

This gargoyle, however, faced inward – looking onto the roof of the building, instead of overlooking the street below.

Moving between flashes of lightning, he crossed the roof, holding his gunblade at the ready.  Still, the creature didn't move.  In one quick move, Seifer pounced on the gargoyle, swinging Hyperion in a long arc of silver.  The blow should have decapitated the thing, but at the last second, the creature broke its stationary pose and raised one arm, causing the blade to bite deep into its forearm.  Seifer gritted his teeth and wrenched the blade free, leaping backwards as the gargoyle came to life.

A long, screeching howl pierced the night as the creature flew at Seifer.  Close to the gargoyle for the first time, Seifer could see its wicked claws, slashing, fighting their way ever closer to him.  As it leapt for him, Seifer whirled aside, bringing his blade down again.  It caught the wing of the gargoyle, cutting into the bone.

The creature howled again as it turned, pounding towards Seifer on all fours.  It came at him low and fast, impossibly so, leaping upwards at the last moment like a dog springing for his face. As the thing's mouth opened, Seifer brought the butt of Hyperion smashing down, directly into its mawful of razor-sharp teeth.  A wild claw from the gargoyle sent Hyperion flying out of Seifer's hand.

"Damn it!" he swore as he heard the gunblade land and go clattering to the edge of the roof.

Seifer dropped to the ground and rolled away, narrowly dodging a claw that came crashing onto the rooftop, smashing through the concrete.  Seifer scrambled to his feet and ran for Hyperion.

Another screech as the creature freed its claw, and Seifer heard the flapping of wings. For the second time in a space of minutes, he dove to the ground, as the gargoyle flew past his head, its grasping talons clutching at empty air.  

It wheeled around and landed in front of him, blocking his path to his gunblade.  The gargoyle extended its wings to their full length, raised its arms, and howled.  As it adjusted its leg for this threat display, it unwittingly gave itself an advantage, knocking Hyperion over the roof of the building.

"You're gonna pay for that," Seifer snarled, lunging at the creature.  He tackled the creature around its waist, and, they tumbled to the ground, rolling to the brink of the roof and beyond, over the edge of the building, falling after the gunblade.

The gargoyle flailed in vain as Seifer clutched onto it, trying to keep its claws away from his face.  Wings uselessly buffeted the air as they fell four stories, first slamming hard onto a pitched roof, causing Seifer to cry out in pain, then rolling to a lower, flat roof.  

As they hit the ground, Seifer released the gargoyle, rolling clear of it, then kicking his way back to his feet.  He spied Hyperion and ran for the blade, able, after long years of practice, to kick it right up into his hand.  Instantly, he rejoined the battle, bringing the gunblade to bear once more.

He caught the creature off-guard this time, and the blade sliced into the thing's side.  It roared once more, this time from pain and surprise.  Seifer pulled the trigger, the devastating effect proving what made the gunblade such a lethal weapon.

The gargoyle writhed, enough so to free itself from the blade.  In desperation, it turned its back on Seifer and ran, bounding to the edge of the building.  Seifer followed close behind, trying to prevent the creature from fleeing.  As it spread its wings, he slashed outward, slicing the thick membrane that stretched between the thing's wing bones.  Nevertheless, it leapt over the roof of the building and started to glide.

Seifer clipped Hyperion to its spot on his belt and took his second running leap of the night, throwing himself into the void after the gargoyle.  He had only a second to regret his action, as the distance to the street below loomed impossibly long.  If he miscalculated, he had a fifteen- – maybe twenty- – story fall ahead of him, with nothing but hard cement at the end.

The gargoyle's torn wing prevented it from gliding with any measure of skill, and it only took one clap of thunder until Seifer crashed into the thing from above, landing on it in a tackle that sent them tumbling towards the pavement.  Seifer worked frantically to control the struggling monster, to check its wild clawing and to keep it underneath him to cushion the fall.

Suddenly, an idea struck him.  He closed his eyes and tried to push the panicking gargoyle from his mind, muttering quickly in the language of magic, well aware that he only had one chance at casting the spell.  As he finished, he opened his eyes.  Nothing had changed.  He couldn't tell if he'd cast it correctly or not.  Even if he had, the spell might not work – he'd never heard of anyone using it to survive a twenty-story drop.

As the ground came rushing up to meet them, the gargoyle's struggling intensified.  Its wings buffeted Seifer in the face as he tried to push them away.  Then, without warning, the creature stopped moving, silenced with a bone-jarring crash as the two rolled apart.

As he opened his eyes, Seifer started laughing, quietly at first, and then like a raving madman, the rain almost choking him as it ran down his throat.  They'd hit ground.  The gargoyle had died on impact.  Seifer found himself floating six inches above the pavement – the result of his magic spell.

The rain felt good on his face.  Seifer stood up, wincing at the pain in his shoulder, and walked over to the body of the gargoyle, which had already started to turn soft.  He could see the flesh starting to run off the skeleton in small rivers.  As he watched, the dead gargoyle dissolved into goo and ran down the street, swallowed into the sewers.

He walked a block to the next intersection, ignoring the stairs from passerby – obviously unused to mercenaries and dissolving gargoyles falling from the sky.  At the intersection, he hailed a taxi and ordered it to take him to the train station.

As he got out of the cab and paid the fare, he turned to walk away.

"Umm... sir?" said the taxi driver.

"Yes?" Seifer asked, turning, ready to board the train and return to Garden.

"Before you go in there, you might want to stop... hovering."

Seifer ordered the SeeD train car attached to the next train bound for Esthar and boarded, immediately stripping in order to wring out his wet clothes.  He'd already fallen asleep by the time the train started to move.  Once the train arrived in Esthar, another short ride would carry him back to Garden.

*          *

Seifer walked briskly up the front steps of Esthar Garden, the new building glistening in the mid-morning sun.  Just inside the door, Seifer cast his eyes on the Balamb Memorial, attend by an honor guard of Seifer's highest-ranking security troops.

The Memorial itself consisted of a single black monolith, a sheet of solid marble that seemed to rise out of the very foundations of Esthar Garden and stretch into the sky.  It stood perhaps five stories tall and had no decoration on it, except for the yin-and-yang SeeD insignia, in black-and-white marble.  The walls on either side of the monolith had inscriptions on them, the names of those who died in the attack on Balamb Garden, or those left behind.

Seifer had insisted on posting the honor guard, and Squall had agreed, feeling that the Memorial should take precedence as the heart of Esthar Garden.  

Seifer lingered at the Memorial, ostensibly reviewing his troops, but in reality, his eyes sought out a name upon the wall.  Just one person, out of so many, but Seifer could never forgive himself her capture.

Fujin.

He'd played it over in his mind so many times.  The way she broke away from the rest of the group to distract The Storm, sacrificing herself for the rest of them.  And then Quistis and Zell had just teamed up on Seifer, dragging him aboard the ship.

He'd didn't even get a chance to save her.

"Some Knight I am," he muttered.

"Sir?" one of the honor guard ventured.

"What?" Seifer snapped back, irritated at the interruption, at the violation of his memory, at the thought of his failure.  "Maintain your discipline."

"Sir," the guard replied, snapping to attention as Seifer stalked past him and down the main corridor.

Seifer continued on his way, moving towards his quarters, massaging a stiffening shoulder and a wounded ego as he went.  He approached the door and scanned his ID card, the door sliding noiselessly open before him.  Seifer, no stranger to carnage on the battlefield, could not have adequately prepared himself for the scene that greeted him inside his room.

"What the hell is this?" he shouted.

Zell, sitting on the floor amidst a pile of electronic parts, smiled sheepishly.  Around him lay the remains of Seifer's stereo, reduced to its original components and beyond.

"Well, uh," Zell said, starting to explain.  Nervously, he reached up to run a hand through his hair.  He stopped halfway through the motion, realizing he still had some sort of circuit board in his hand.  As Zell started to stand, one precariously balanced pile gave way, shifting its mass entirely, and overtaking another pile.

"No!" Zell exclaimed.  "I had those two perfectly sorted!"

"Zell, you wanna tell me what the hell is going on here?"  Seifer said, still in the doorway.

"Umm...  Well, see," Zell tried to take a step towards Seifer, not realizing one foot had caught itself beneath another pile of electronics.  Snagged, he moved forward, dragging the equipment with him.  "I was going to listen to some music while I waited for you.  But then I noticed that the little drawer that accepts discs seemed to stick.  So, I thought, as a special surprise to you, I'd fix it.  So I started taking the stereo apart, and, I guess I got a little carried away."

Seifer shook his head and smiled.  As an consequence of dating Zell, he'd had to accept several things, included on that list: hot dogs, the _Pupurun series of books and videos, and the inevitable "surprise."  No doubt Zell would fix the stereo, and have it working in better-than-original condition.  Eventually._

"Okay," Seifer shrugged, wincing suddenly at the pain in his shoulder.  "You fix this.  I'm going to shower and call Quistis to debrief the mission."

Zell's eyes glinted as he opened his mouth.  Seifer cut him off.

"Spare me the debriefing humor.  As long as my stereo is in seventeen thousand pieces, you have work to do."

*          *

"Damn it!" Quistis swore, pounding her fist on the table.  The glassware rattled ominously, prompting her to reach for it, offering a stabilizing hand.  She shoved her chair away from the table and stormed to the windows, which looked out over Esthar Garden.  "Damn it, damn it, damn it!"

Squall, from his seat at the table, watched her, unmoved.  He delicately reached out and took a sip from his orange juice, dabbing the corners of his mouth with his napkin while Quistis continued to stare out the window.

"It's not fair, Squall," she fumed.  "It's just not right!"

Still, not reacting, Squall polished off the remains of his breakfast:  a ham-and-cheese omelet, which he'd carefully cut into slices and placed between pieces of toast.

Quistis stormed back to the table and sat down, picking up her knife, and spreading jam over her toast vengefully.  In amongst the dishes and accoutrements of breakfast stood the focus of Quistis' fury:  a game of Triple Triad – their fourth so far, with Squall, again, as the victor.

"Your days are numbered, Leonhart," she muttered, between bites.  "I'll figure out your secret, and when I do..." she held up a slice of toast and nodded meaningfully.

Squall merely raised an eyebrow and continued chewing.  As they finished their meal, he pressed a button on the table marked "call."  Seemingly, out of nowhere, two junior cadets working kitchen duty appeared and quickly cleared the table leaving Quistis and Squall alone once more.

"The business of the day," she said.

Squall rose, smoothing out the wrinkles in his uniform, and looked out over the Garden.  Esthar Garden, like Balamb, consisted of a central spire from which everything radiated outward.  Squall's massive, multi-story office occupied the top three floors of the central spire.  The entire office featured heavily mirrored windows, allowing Squall to watch the Garden at his leisure, while preventing anyone from spying on him.  Quistis and Squall now sat in the top floor of his office that, for lack of purpose, he had designated for those rare occasions when he slept or ate.  More typically, the room saw use for Squall's visitors, as in this morning, since Quistis had persuaded Squall into taking a working breakfast.

"Functionally, we're doing as well as can be expected," Quistis said, folding her hands in her lap.  "Our losses from the attack at Balamb have set us back, but we're working to repair them.  Most classes have long since exceeded capacity, but we haven't seen any appreciable difference from this.  Instructors and students have been... crystallized by the attack, unified.  Attendance is better than ever, detention is down, academic scores are exceptional.  Current SeeDs are pushing themselves harder than ever, taking the existing exams.  SeeD has never, at any point in its history, had so many members of such high rank."

"And you attribute this to Mallis' attack?" Squall asked, without turning to face her.

"Yes.  Everyone wants to be a part of the team that reclaims Garden.  Every one of us is aware of our loss, we feel it every time we see that monolith, and we all want to go back and recapture what we lost that day...  Assuming, of course, that it's your plan that we do so..."  Quistis' let her voice trail off at the end.  She didn't know how to deal with the topic of the attack on Garden – she barely knew how she felt about it, let alone how Squall felt, and he, most certainly, had no intention of giving away any clues.

"So the education is progressing smoothly," he said.  A statement, not a question.

"Yes.  Thanks to Xu and Fujin's last-minute retrieval of the data core, we still have the entire contents of the Garden Network.  Nothing was lost there.  We couldn't save the textbooks, of course, but since their contents are all on the Network, the actual loss is an inconvenience.  What we did lose was access to Cid's library in the lower levels of Balamb Garden.  None of that was ever preserved on the Network, and much of it was potentially valuable.  However, I've spent a good deal of my free time transcribing the contents..."

"Transcribing?"  Squall turned this time.

Quistis tapped a finger to her temple.  "Perfect photographic memory, remember?  It doesn't matter if I actually read the page, I just had to see the page.  All I have to do from there is write down what's in my head.  It's a slow process, but it's better than nothing."  

"What sort of results do you think Cid's library will yield?"

"Honestly, there's no telling.  I can't tell until I've been through it all.  The last time I went through Cid's library – well, you know about that -- I found out he was in league with Ultimecia and had been manipulating us since the orphanage.  Potentially, it could be very valuable.  I started digging through there when I was thirteen and I managed to teach myself blue magic as a result."

Squall nodded, having witnessed, firsthand, what powerful spells Quistis had taught herself.

"Keep at it, then, but don't wear yourself out.  What's our mission status?"

"We're still running missions as per usual, but we're shorthanded.  With the loss of life at Balamb Garden,  we just don't have as many free SeeDs to dedicate to missions, and with the classrooms packed as they are, we're loathe to dedicate any Instructors to missions.  Everyone is willing to go, it's just a question of who we can spare.  If we had any outside help, it would be a different matter."

"We can't do that," Squall snapped.  Since General Mallis' betrayal at Balamb Garden, Squall had established an adamant rule for Esthar Garden: no outside personnel, except where he judged it necessary.  So far, he had not seen fit to hire anyone outside of Garden.  Some members of SeeD, used to having cafeteria workers, janitors, healthcare professionals, et al, had balked at the idea of doing their own dirty work, but Squall had presented them with an ultimatum – do the work, or leave Garden.

"I know, I know," Quistis replied, putting up her hands.  "I was just saying, it would be different if we weren't so shorthanded."

"We could move up the field exam; give us a new crop of SeeDs that way."

"I say we move up the field exam and step up the difficulty."

Squall stopped from his survey of the Garden and stared at Quistis.

"That's right.  Inform all the cadets that in light of the overwhelming difficulties presented with facing General Mallis, we will only be accepting the best and brightest candidates, and that you've received new intelligence that moves up your timetable, making the field exam necessary at an earlier date.  Then we see who rises to the challenge."

"Aren't you concerned that we'll leave ourselves even more shorthanded?"

"Not at all.  Every cadet out there dreams of being the one who brings home Mallis' head to you.  You'll see astounding results, and get a group of fresh SeeDs who already outrank most of their seniors."

"Fair enough," Squall nodded.  "We're currently looking for a mission to base our field exam around, correct?"

"Yes.  Nothing's presented itself so far."

Squall issued a half-laugh, a short, sharp sound.  "Makes you wonder how Cid kept this ship afloat for so long, doesn't it?"

"Well, being insane and megalomaniacal probably had something to do with it," Quistis replied.  Then, after a long beat, "And still..."

Squall's eyebrow went up again, her prompt to continue, the only such cue she would receive – Quistis knew Squall too well for that.  Today she'd caught Squall in one of his rare "talkative" moods – a relative standard at best – and she knew that she had to press to keep the conversation alive.

"And still, I can't reconcile what I read in those journals with the Cid we knew.  I mean, he was our Headmaster.  He was the one who raised us."

Squall's eyes flashed.

"He was never on our side.  No matter what we thought, no matter how warm he seemed, no matter how close we were – or thought we were to him – he was always the enemy.  He was pulling the strings from the minute we arrived at the orphanage, to the instant General Mallis killed him.  Never forget that.  Cid gave his own wife to Ultimecia.  Cid tried to double-cross Ultimecia for his own gain.  Cid went so far as to arrange for an assassin to botch an attempt on his own life.  He was never on our side, except by coincidence."

Squall stood there, immobile, fearsome in his wrath, his anger resonant in his voice.  Cid's betrayal had hurt him, considerably, and Quistis could tell.  She, who knew Squall best, could tell how deep this wound ran.  She wanted to reach out to him.

"Squall, I—"

The phone in her pocket rang.

"Hold on," she said, reaching for it.  "Yes, Seifer?" she asked, glimpsing the number as she flipped it open.

"Hey, Quistis," he replied.  "Did I catch you at I bad time?" 

"I'm going over the Garden's status with Squall," she answered.  "Why?"

"Good thing I caught you, then.  Who knows what you two crazy kids will do with all that space to roll around in?  And that great big table on the top floor?  Perish the thought."

"Okay, Seifer, are you just calling to harass me?  Can I get back to work?"  she pressed.

"Actually, it's business, blondie.  I just got back from the Galbadia mission.  I need a debrief, and someone to patch me up.  Zell's busy right now, since he destroyed my stereo, and I thought you might be up to the task."

Quistis sighed, mentally, and turned to Squall.  "Squall, Seifer needs to debrief the Galbadia mission."

"Go ahead," Squall replied.  "We're done here."

"Okay," Quistis said, turning her attention back to the phone.  "Be there in a few."

*          *

Irvine paused at the door, shot his cuffs – more for effect than necessity – and knocked gently but briskly on the door, three times.  The knock wasn't technically necessary, since he practically lived there, and had his own keycard, in fact, but it seemed like the polite thing to do.

No response.  Odd.  Irvine knocked again.

Still no answer.

Irvine knocked a third time.

Nothing.

He removed his keycard from his pocket and let himself in, almost drowning in the absolute darkness inside.

"Close the door," came her voice, emerging from somewhere within that darkness.  It didn't sound like her, had none of her customary vitality or spark, none of the life that defined her.  The shell of Selphie Tilmitt.

He stood in the doorway, not ready to move until his sniper's eyes adjusted.  From beside him came the voice of a blues singer, low and throaty, singing about love, pain and death.  Just what Selphie needed to hear.

Irvine's eyes started to make out the details of the room, Selphie, sitting directly across from him.  He brought his arm from behind him to show her the surprise.

"Look Sel, I brought you flowers."

"Great," she said, a monotone.  "You can just... throw them somewhere.  On the bed or something."

"No," he replied, keeping his tone light, "I think maybe they need a little water."

"Whatever," she shrugged.

As Irvine moved to find something to put the flowers, he noticed the bottle next to Selphie.

"Selphie, have you been drinking?"

"Yeah," shrug.

"Today?" he pushed.

"Yeah," another shrug.

"Don't you think it's kind of early for that?  I mean, it's not even noon yet."

Through the darkness he could see her cold jade eyes fix on him.  "Obviously I haven't been drinking enough, because I'm still sober."

"Okay," he replied, putting his hands up, "I think we have a little problem."

She slowly stood up, walking towards him.  True to her word, she gave no hint of inebriation.  She looked at Irvine at spoke coolly.

"I live at Trabia Garden.  That gets blown up.  I live at Balamb Garden.  That gets invaded.  And you 'think we have a little problem?'  And then on top of that, all of the junior cadets placed in my specific care get killed?  Yeah, we've got a problem."

"Look, Selphie--" he started, putting his hands on her shoulders.

"Don't!" she snapped, pushing his hands away.

"Okay, okay," he said.  "I can see where this would be the biggest deal in the world to you.  I understand that.  I'm not trying to change that.  But two things.  First of all: you can't destroy yourself over it.  Talk to Quistis – she's the one with the specialty in psychological operations.  Second:  You're not going to take it out on me."

"I'm sorry," she said.  "I'm so sorry.  You're right.  I don't want to fight with you, Irvy."

"What do you want to do?" he asked.  "Do you want to get some lunch?"

"No lunch," she replied, shaking her head.  "No people."

"Tell you what," he said, straightening his hat.  "You stay here, and I'll go raid the cafeteria.  I'll fix us a nice lunch, and we'll eat here.  Sound good?"

Selphie nodded distantly, slinking back to her chair.  Irvine could do nothing but hope that her supply of alcohol had already reached the bottom.

*          *

"Damn, Seifer!" Quistis swore as she looked at his shoulder, still sore from his rooftop fall.  "You're lucky you didn't shatter your shoulder!"

"I've told him to be careful, but does he ever listen to me?" Zell asked rhetorically, still sitting amidst a circle of electronics, the stereo partially reconstructed.

"Thanks, kids.  I'll remember that the next time I'm falling through the sky attached to an angry gargoyle," Seifer shot back, eyes closed as Quistis poked and prodded at his wounded shoulder.

"And you say it melted and left no trace?" she asked.

"Dissolved into a pudding more vile than Zell's famous hot dog soup.  I've never seen anything like it."

"Hey!" Zell shot out.  "Hot dog soup was a brilliant idea!  And it didn't taste _that bad!"_

Seifer shook his head slowly, a pained expression on his face.

"It's a new one by me," Quistis said, ignoring Zell's outburst.  Then, standing up:  "Okay, clean bill of health.  Just don't go hurling yourself off rooftops in the future.  Good way to get yourself killed."

"Yeah," Seifer said, rotating his arm slowly.  "Tell that to the gargoyle."  He crossed the room and delicately pulled a shirt over his head.  "So tell us about this breakfast with Squall.  How are you doing with your resolution?"

"My resolution?"  Quistis immediately felt a blush creeping its way up her face.

"Aww, Quistis, no!" Seifer exclaimed, kicking the wall with his heel.  "You were doing so well!"

"But Seifer..." she said, spreading out both arms before her.

"Here we go," Zell said, speaking around a mouthful of screws.

"Hush, you!" Quistis whispered, only half-joking.

"Let me guess what your rebuttal is," Seifer jumped in.  "You've been in love with Squall for as long as you've known him.  That amount of time comprises well over the majority of your life.  You can't remember a time when you wouldn't do anything for him.  And it's impossible to just give that up.  Was that what you were going to say?"

"That was the gist of it, yes," she answered.  "Only my way sounded better.  But the resolution stands.  No more waiting around for Squall to notice me.  That's in the past.  This morning was a working breakfast, and I happened to suffer a... moment of weakness.  A temporary relapse.  That's all it was.  It's not like I jumped off a building or anything stupid like that."

"Well," Seifer said, looking grave, "if that's all it was."

"Promise," Quistis crossed her heart as she said it.  "So are you satisfied?  Am I allowed to go free now?"

"What?"  Seifer said, grinning.  "You have a pressing engagement somewhere else?"

"No, but I need to file your mission report so Xu can request final payment from the Galbadian government."

"Fine, fine," Seifer waved her away.  "Condemn me to solitude."

"Hey!" Zell shouted, for the second time.  "What am I, chopped liver?"

"No," Quistis said, pausing in the doorway.  "You know the old saying, 'you are what you eat,' right?"

"Yeah?" Zell asked, cautious.

"Well, what do they put in those hot dogs you're so fond of?"  She closed the door behind her, but it opened a second later as Zell shouted down the hall.

"They're made of skeletal meat, you know!"

Quistis waved over her shoulder, smiling to herself.

*          *

"Well, Ms. Heartily, I don't have to tell you what a coup this is, bringing you on board and all."

"I'm very grateful you were able to find a place for me," Rinoa replied.  "I'm looking forward to working for Esthar's diplomatic corps."

"Well, there hasn't been much use for us over the last few decades, but we're expanding now.  We owe a great deal to one of your friends, in fact."

With that admission the elevator door opened and Ambassador Shackelton stepped off.  Rinoa clutched her attaché case a little tighter and pursued him further into the embassy.

"Oh?" she asked.  "Who was that?"

"Quistis Trepe.  Cid Kramer posted her with us for some months.  She did a great deal of work in helping us to open Esthar to the outside world.  We're deeply indebted to her, so to have another representative from Balamb Garden is just..."  And then, realizing his gaffe.  "Oh, I'm sorry.  I forgot about... the attack."

"It's... okay," Rinoa said.  "And I should dispel any notions up front.  I'm not from any Garden, as such.  I just happened to live there.  I'm no Quistis Trepe.  I'm not even a SeeD.  My only real qualification is growing up in my father's household and the fact that I'm eager to prove myself.  But if you give me a shot, you won't be disappointed."

Shackelton smiled, smoothing the front of his suit over his slight potbelly.  "I'm sure I won't.  President Loire spoke very highly of you in recommending you for this posting.  If he says you're right for the job, I'm inclined to believe him.  Now come along, my dear, and I'll show you to your office." 

Rinoa's office had, to her delight, its own set of windows looking out over the embassy grounds and the uniformed guards standing below.  

"Now of course, you have your own phone, with two lines," Shackelton said.  "There's also a secure line down the hall.  It's a little pricey, but don't worry about that, naturally.  Here's your safe," he showed her a picture mounted on the wall with a safe concealed behind it.  "And everything else is self-explanatory.  Any questions?"

"No," she said.

"Wonderful.  Well, I'll let you settle in.  Thanks again for coming to join us."

"Thank you, sir."

He left the room and Rinoa set her attaché case on the desk to start unpacking her office supplies.

*          *

Bugs woke him up today, as they always do, crawling-biting inside his brain.  Itchy.  Itchy down his back, too.  Red behind his eye, so the world looks like blood.  Nothing looks right anymore.

His hands don't look like his hands, don't feel like his hands.  He can't feel them when they pound pound pound on the walls or bend at the bars.  That made the blue coat men run.

Blood, at least, he remembers.  He can taste it copper-rich inside his mouth.

He wants to taste blood again.  He wants to taste hers.


	3. QED

Quistis and Seifer stood before the open weapons locker, looking over the gleaming array of rapiers.  Quistis reached out and pulled one towards her, testing it for balance.  Satisfied, she handed it to Seifer, who ritually examined it.  He handed it back and made his own selection.  After she had a chance to examine his choice of weapon – a slightly shorter, heavier blade – they took their positions opposite each other.  Zell, sitting hunched in front of a chessboard, looked on.

Quistis took a few experimental swings as she stood opposite Seifer.

"Don't worry, blondie," he smirked.  "I'll go easy on you.  In fact, I'll even do this left-handed."

Quistis frowned as Seifer bowed low, transferring his weapon to his left hand with a distinct air of noblesse oblige.  He stood back up, ready to begin.

"Shall we?" he asked, still grinning.

Quistis didn't answer, exploding towards him, her rapier lunging out in a flash of silver that came darting directly at Seifer's scar.  He barely had time to step backward, awkwardly, and parry the attack.

Her foil flickered down, smacking Seifer unexpectedly on the back of his left hand, making him yelp in surprise.  Suddenly, he'd dropped the weapon, and Quistis stepped nimbly in to retrieve in, grasping it in her free hand.  Seifer had just started to step away from her when he found both weapons pointed directly at his heart.

"Top of my class, remember?" she said.

Zell laughed hysterically from the sidelines.  Seifer turned his head to see the blond fighter rolling on the floor.

"It's not that funny, Chicken-Wuss," Seifer growled.

"Yes it is!" Zell howled, breaking out into laughter again.  "Man, she got you good!  Did you forget she holds the top scores in every category, including swordplay?"

Seifer turned his head back to Quistis, who still hadn't moved her weapons from their delicate position at his heart.

"Now, are we going to do this properly, or do I have to humiliate you some more with cheap theatrics?" she asked, smiling sweetly.

Seifer took his weapon from Quistis and returned to his initial position, foil in his right hand.

"What about you, Zell?" she asked, while Seifer was readying himself, "You moved yet?"

"Yeah," he called back.  "Pawn to Rook's three."

"Queen to Knight's eight, check," she shot back, swiping with her sword once more.  "And I suggest you resign while the offer's still there."

Seifer rolled his eyes, grinning.  "Yeah, and _I'm the show-off."_

They saluted each other and Seifer's blade flashed forward, targeting Quistis left' shoulder.  She deflected the blow languidly, moving her weapon to strike at Seifer's feet.  Seifer took a quick hop backwards, neatly dancing away from Quistis' attack, and aimed a sidelong blow at the blonde's face.  As it came towards her, Quistis reacted, ducking quickly and lashing out with a cut that, in with a real blade, would have eviscerated Seifer.  At the same time, Seifer saw her rapier coming towards him, and twisted at an impossible angle, turning himself away from her, and reaching over his shoulder to tag her on the head with his blade.

"Zell?" they both called out in unison, asking for a judgment.

"Huh?" he said.  "Oh, it looked pretty much like you guys hit at the same time.  No point, either way."

Both fighters grumbled to themselves as they stood up, preparing to go another round.

"I'm never going to win this," Zell muttered.  "No one beats you in chess.  Or anything else."

"What was that, Zell?"  Quistis asked.

"I said, 'Rook to Knight one,'" he sighed.

"Ah.  Well, in that case, Pawn to Bishop seven."

The door slid open, admitting Tia, currently the highest-ranked cadet in Esthar Garden and self-appointed protégé of Quistis.  She waited respectfully in the doorway for an invitation to enter.  Like Quistis, the young redhead had a gravity born of relating to people many years her senior.

"Tia, come in," Quistis said.  "I've been eagerly following your progress in the tournament.   Maybe you can help Instructor Dincht with a little trouble he's having."

Tia crossed over to Zell as Seifer and Quistis saluted each other again, signifying the end of their duel.  They returned their foils to the weapons locker, and joined Tia and Zell at the chessboard, Quistis resuming her seat opposite Zell.

"Well, Tia?" she asked, raising one eyebrow.  "What do you think?  What's the best possible move for Inspector Dincht?"

Tia's eyes went wide at the question.  She stood between Zell and Quistis, her hands clasped in front of her, looking from one to the other.  Seifer kept his distance, a smug and enigmatic grin on his face.

Suddenly, Quistis realized what she'd done.

"Tia, relax," she said.  "I understand that the chess tournament is one of SeeD's biggest events for ranking cadets prior to the field exam.  Right now, that tournament is probably the only thing on your mind.

"I also understand that I've just asked you to choose sides between two senior Instructors.  In the past, that could be the grounds for great animosity.  Back... with Headmaster Kramer, the politics got pretty fierce.  But this isn't like that.  So don't worry.  This is just a friendly game.  You're not being graded on your answer, and Zell's not going to hold it against you when you tell him he's losing."

Tia relaxed visibly.

"May I?  I mean... Permission to..."

"Go ahead, Tia," Quistis said.  "You have the same luxuries in front of them as you do in front of me."

"I'm so relieved, because Instructor Dincht's position is so weak.  He should have resigned several moves ago.  I mean, it's all over.  He'll move that Rook to block your Bishop's Pawn, and then there's nothing to stop the Queen's Pawn, and you'll have two Queens, and then he's just dead.  I don't even know how he managed to hold out for this long."  The words all came out in a torrent, a verbal paroxysm she'd held back with obvious difficulty.

Quistis smiled.  "Zell, tell her how you managed to hold out so long."

"The year I graduated from SeeD," Zell said, "I took third place in the tournament.  I even beat out a certain Commander you may know."

"You beat Commander Leonhart?" Tia asked, astonished.  Zell beamed at the memory.

"No matter how hard I tried," Quistis recalled, "I could not disabuse the Commander of his notion that 'chess is just a game.'  I tried all the standard arguments: its emphasis on pure strategy and psychology, the battle of wills, the marshalling of forces, the replication of battle, all the reasons _why _we emphasize it so heavily in the curriculum at Garden, but it never got through to him."

"Of course," Seifer added, "not so very long later, he discovered Triple Triad, and no one has been safe since."

"But I suspect, Tia," Quistis said, "That however much you may enjoy hearing tales out of school, it was not your original intent in coming here.  What can we do for you?"

"The Harvester of Grandidi Forest," Tia said.

"Pardon?" Quistis replied.

"When we were at Balamb Garden, you let me run a capture mission against an unknown entity that was killing hunters in Grandidi Forest.  That mission failed.  At the time you went into the Dark to interrogate Headmaster Kramer's assassin, you said, and I quote, 'when all of this is over, you can run another mission into the forest, and I'll be the first to sign up to help you capture that thing.'

"I have prepared a full mission profile using the data from the previous mission.  All I need are two SeeDs to accompany me, as per your prior instructions.  I'm here to give you the opportunity to sign on."

"What time frame are you looking at?"

"I don't foresee it taking more than two, three days maximum."

Quistis nodded sharply.  "Never let it be said that I went back on my word.  Zell, can you cover my classes?"

"You know the Trepies will be crushed," he said.

"Knowing your classes, they'll be crushed, folded, and mangled," she replied, as Zell got up to leave.  "Okay, Tia.  Who do you want for the third person?"

Tia didn't answer.  Quistis turned to look at her, following the girl's gaze across the room to where it rested: Seifer.  He watched her for a long moment before reacting.

"Really?" he asked, smirking on one side of his face.  "Are you so confident?"  He took a step towards the small girl, his long legs carrying him an impressive distance.  "Don't you know who I am?"

"Seifer Almasy," she replied, doing her best to keep her voice level.

"And?" he asked, stepping closer, arms folded over his chest.  "Is that all you know about me?"

"No.  You chaired the both the Junior Disciplinary Committee and the Disciplinary Committee using your authority to cause as many fights and disciplinary problems as you stopped.  You failed three field exams, each time with more disastrous results than the last.  You hold Garden's record for demerits accumulated and hours spent in detention, although you also acquired quite a reputation for escaping from the detention facility.  You're reckless and insubordinate."

Seifer nodded very slowly, smiling.  "All very true."

"You're also Commander Leonhart's hand-picked head of security.  The Commander himself intervened on your behalf on more than one occasion.  You're the only person to have stood up to former Headmaster Kramer at a Tribunal and return to Garden.  Your scores, in many areas, are second only to Instructor Trepe's.  As I understand, it's still undecided as to whether or not you or Commander Leonhart is the actual gunblade champion of SeeD."

"And, if you complete your mission while keeping my 'reckless and insubordinate' impulses in check, then it looks like you've done the impossible.  Am I right?"  Seifer tilted his head slightly, his voice mimicking Tia's with deadly accuracy.

"Granted," she blinked her eyes a few times at his verbal mockery, but held her ground.

"Well, then," he said, "why should I let myself be used by an overambitious cadet trying to put herself in the spotlight?  That's one to think about."  Seifer put one finger to his lips as he turned away from her.

"Oh, enough of this!" Quistis exclaimed.  "He's just stringing you along, Tia.  One half of his devious little brain is here playing mind games with you while the other half is in his room deciding what to pack.  Seifer never changes."

"Too true," he laughed.  "So when do we leave?"

*          *

Nightfall saw Quistis, Tia, and Seifer encamped inside the Grandidi Forest, having spent much of the day in transit from Esthar Garden.  Now, they'd built a small fire and pitched their tent for the evening.

"So," Seifer said to Tia, as he restlessly paced the campsite, "tell me about this thing we're hunting."

"Well," she replied, from her seat in front of the tent, "you have all the material in the briefing I gave you."

"Yes," Seifer said, brandishing the folder she'd carefully prepared for him.  SeeD protocols dictated that the mission profiler log the details of the mission on the Garden Network, but Tia had gone the extra mile and printed out hard-copies of the briefing for her team members.  "I've been meaning to speak to you about this."

"Oh?" she asked eagerly.  "Is there a problem?"

With a casual flick of his long arm, Seifer's arm flicked out and sent the briefing file through the air.  It arced straight for its intended course and landed atop the fire, without even causing a stir of sparks.  The cover peeled back and Tia watched in horror and dismay as the carefully arrayed photographs of the creature crinkled and blackened.  Seifer watched her reaction in smug satisfaction.

"Why...  What...  Why did you do that?" she sputtered.  Panicked, she looked to Quistis for help.  Quistis nodded at Tia, encouraging her, and gave no further reaction.

"Why indeed?  What would make me do such a thing?"

"You're trying to prove a point," Tia said, firmly.  "To teach me a lesson."

"Which is?"

"That you have no intention of following my orders, that you've only been playing along up until now, and that the game is now officially over."

Seifer tilted his head back and laughed.  "Impressive.  But also wrong.  You'll have to try harder, kid."

Tia looked wounded and surprised.  Quistis knew the feeling and wanted to help the girl, but she also knew that Seifer had a more valuable lesson in mind.

Seifer walked over to Tia and knelt down in front of her.  "What day of the week did the hunters encounter this creature?"

"Tuesday," she answered, without hesitation.

"How many hunters were there?"  Seifer fired the question back almost before she had finished speaking.

"Three."

"How many died?"

"One, two escaped."

"Gender of hunters?"

"One woman, two men."

"How did the victim die?"

"He was skewered with a spear."

"From which direction did they approach the creature's lair?"

"From the west, heading east."

"In which direction did they escape?"

"Running north-northwest."

"When you fought the creature, what type of weapon did it use?"

"A giant sword."

"How many victims has this thing claimed, total?"

"Seven."

"How many sightings?"

"Fifteen."

"The fact that it's used two different weapons and successfully fought off a team that includes two trained SeeDs, what does that tell you?"

"That it's intelligent.  And tool-using.  And fiercely dedicated to guarding it's lair."

"Very good," he finally nodded his approval.  "So what have you just demonstrated to me?"

"That I know all the facts of our mission?"

"More than that: that you know them well enough to relay them to your squad in the field.  You know them with total precision and accuracy, and you can state them without faltering.  Now, the lesson continues:

"These 'hunters' who were first attacked by this creature – why were they really in that forest?"

Tia looked puzzled.  "What...  I don't understand."

"What was their occupation?"

"I don't...  I mean, how is that relevant?"

"Without looking at it, the third page of your briefing shows the article from _Occult Fan magazine, with a picture of those two hunters, not long after their escape from the creature.  The hunter on the right is wearing a necklace.  What is it made of?"_

Tia studied the ground for a moment before answering.  "I don't know."

"What about the shirt of the hunter on the left?  What is that made of?"

"I don't know."

"The one on the left is also wearing a bandolier.  What caliber ammunition is it?"

"I don't know."  She paused for a long moment, waiting for any more questions.  "But I still don't see how any of this is relevant."

Seifer nodded to her.  "Take a look at the photo, and tell me what you see."

Tia looked at the photo in her folder, studying it intently before looking back up at Seifer.

"The necklace is made of teeth, and the ammunition is very high caliber, but other than that, I don't know what you're asking."

"Instructor?" Seifer asked.

Quistis slid over to sit next to Tia.

"Look at the teeth, Tia.  Remember what we learned in class."

Tia took a deep breath and started analyzing what she saw.  "Two of the teeth are long and needlelike, characteristic of what you'd find in the dragon family.  Three others are more like tusks, with a forward arc.  The teeth are for goring, rather than chewing, length indicative of behemoths.  Then there are five that are twisted and discolored.  This suggests that they've been removed from members of the deadly plant family: either an ochu or a malboro."

"Good, now look at the shirt.  What material is it made of?"

Tia stared at the photograph intently, and Quistis could almost hear the girl's mind at work.

"It's reacted unfavorably to the sweat on his body, so between that and the way the sun in the photo hits it, I'd guess and say it's silk."

"Right.  Now look at it again with your connector."

Tia reached into her pack and produced her Garden Network Connector, the flat panel on which all team members received their briefings.  She called up the photograph.

"Okay."

"Now, magnify the silk until you can see something significant."

Tia magnified the image until she could see the weave of the silk.

"What the hell?" she breathed.  The fabric, instead of a traditional cross-shaped weave pattern, had a star-shaped weave to it, like a series of very fine spider's webs, knit together.

"That is caterchipillar silk.  Rare, and very expensive."

"And the gun?"  Seifer asked.  "Do you know what kind of ammo that is?"

"No," Tia replied.  "But the gun must be something to need ammo like that."

"That ammo is specially made for a Bismarck model rifle.  We have a few back at Garden, and Irvine, of course, has one.  The guns themselves are light, but they have a nasty kick on them.  They have enough more than enough stopping power to knock a T-Rexaur on its rear.  So what does all this add up to, Tia?"

"Well, these were no ordinary hunters," she replied.

"What were they?"  Quistis asked.

"Poachers.  Big game hunters.  Something on that order."

"Right.  And given that at least one of them had a small cannon on hand, and _they_ surprised _it_, how did they wind up running for their lives?  They had the advantage of opportunity, and of weaponry."

"They didn't surprise it.  _It _surprised _them._"

"And what does that tell you about it?"  Seifer chimed in.

"That it's a lot smarter than anyone – including me -- has given it credit for.  But how did you know all this?" Tia asked him.  You never even looked at the folder I gave you."

:"Central tenet of the lesson," Seifer replied.  "I'm smart.  I'm not, say, Quistis-smart, but I'm still smart.  I've passed every one of SeeD's core requirements, generally with high marks."

"When you wanted them," Quistis muttered, raising an eyebrow at Seifer.

"The point is this, Tia: there are no dumb SeeDs.  We all face strict academic challenges, in addition to our physical curriculum.  Even the biggest, most hulking brute in our ranks writes poetry, or can discuss classical philosophy.  As such, we don't need to receive our briefings twice.  Your extra effort is certainly appreciated, but it's unneeded.  Trust your team members to read the profile you give them, and to ask questions if they don't understand.  You with me?"

"I see," Tia nodded.

"Good.  Thus ends the lesson."

"And on that note," Quistis said, "let's call it a night.  We've got a good day's march ahead of us tomorrow."

"Fine by me," Seifer replied.  "Who wants first watch?"

"I'll take it," Quistis said.  "I'm feeling restless."

Seifer and Tia crawled into their sleeping bags while Quistis did a quick tour of the camp's perimeter.  Finding nothing amiss, she settled down to keep watch.

"Quistis?" asked Seifer, his voice sounding small and afraid.

"Yes, Seifer?"  She rolled her eyes as she turned to him.

"Can you tell me a bedtime story?"


	4. A Weekend in the Country

She woke up in the same numbing white room that had housed her since the fall of Balamb Garden.  White walls, white floor, white ceiling, white fluorescent lights that never dimmed.  The detention facility had battered the psyche of lesser individuals into submission, but not Fujin.

She rose from her cot and started her morning scan of the room.  She looked around the room slowly, with great purpose, her eye searching out every detail, seeking even the smallest flaw.  Always, her mind returned to the inevitable question.

How had he done it?

Seifer's ability to escape from the detention facility confounded her.  No matter how often Cid had locked him up, Seifer had proven able to vanish from within the room like a phantom.  What sorcery had he worked?  How could he just walk out of the room, time and again, despite the best efforts of Garden's headmaster?

The sound of the food tray opening marked the beginning of her day.  She moved over to check it.

"LEFTOVERS?" she asked.

"You got lucky today, sweetie," said her guard from the other side of the door.  "I had ribs last night."

"JOY."

"Hey, this is your doing, remember.  The General has given orders that as soon as you're willing to behave yourself, you'll have normal meal privileges restored.  Until then, you get whatever scraps I have left."

Wordlessly, Fujin took the tray and slammed the feeder shut.  She'd subsisted on leftovers for the better part of a week now.  The indignity would not break her.  And more importantly, she finally saw her chance.

She took one of the ribs and attacked it, stripping the meat from the bone ravenously.  Her hunger, though, came not from her stomach, but from a deeper place.  When she'd laid the bone bare, she set it on the ground, raised her boot, and brought the heel smashing down, splintering the bone into several pieces.  She chose the largest and set to work on it, fashioning it into something she could use.  After several hours of concentrated effort, she had exactly what she needed.

"OUT," she said, pounding on the door.

"Okay," the guard outside said.  "Stand away from the door, and don't try anything, or I shoot you where you stand."

"UNDERSTOOD."

The door slid open and she saw her captor, standing in the doorway with his gun trained on her.

"Come out, slowly."

She moved towards the door with her arms raised in front of her, palms up.  He never lowered his weapon.  As Fujin neared him, passing the threshold of the room, she dropped one arm, causing the bone-dagger she'd stored in her sleeve to drop into her hand.  She slid underneath the gun and came up low, driving the sharpened rib into the soft tissue in his throat.  Fujin grabbed his weapon, left the man gurgling on the ground, and took off at a run.

"Hey!  Stop her!" someone yelled from over her shoulder, and the next thing Fujin knew, the concourse of Balamb Garden rang out with gunshots.  A guard dashed out in front of her and Fujin kicked him hard in the stomach, using it as a point to launch off his body.  In midair, she whirled around and brought the weapon down on his skull, piercing his brain with the curious pickaxe blade common to rifles from Adel's regime.

She kept running, hoping to make her way to the Training Center.  From there, she could access the secret area that, in turn, opened onto the outside world through a little-known path.

As she rounded the corner, General Mallis suddenly loomed large in her path, emerging from the library.  She raised the weapon and fired blindly at him, emptying it of bullets in his direction.

He turned, slowly, almost painfully so, and Fujin thought, for a moment that she'd succeeded.  Then, as she watched, unbelieving, the bullets turned to drops of water and splashed harmlessly on the ground.

As Mallis watched her running in his direction, his face contorted into that hideous skull-like rictus that haunted her nightmares.  In the span of a few heartbeats, she'd reached him, swinging the weapon directly for his head.  The blow never connected.

One moment, he stood in front of her.  Before she could blink or follow through on her swing, he appeared behind her.  She never even saw him move.  As she raised her arm again, one hand grabbed her wrist, lifting her off the ground by it.  He squeezed, painfully, forcing her weapon to go clattering to the ground.

He released her, but she never touched the floor.  She hung there, in front of him, magically suspended in the air.

"You are becoming problematic," he said.  "If you think I won't kill you simply because you're my daughter, I suggest you reconsider your position."

Fujin glared at him.

"TIRESOME."

"Follow me," he said.  "I have something to show you."

Mallis led the way to the cafeteria, Fujin floating helpless behind him.  In front of her, she saw a host of her comrades, bound and assembled before her.  Mallis extended his left hand and an aide presented him with Fujin's chakram, Zan.

The General stalked to the center of the room and grabbed the cadet nearest to him.  With his right hand, he tipped the cadet's head back, the chakram in his left hand slicing through the victim's throat in a flash of light.  The cut nearly severed the head from the body, the arterial spray striking Mallis in the face.  He smiled as he killed the boy.

Mallis plunged one hand into his victim's throat, bathing his hand in the gore.  He returned to Fujin and smeared the blood on either side of her face.  It felt sticky on her cheeks, and the heady smell of it threatened to drown her.

"Let there be no mistake.  His death is your doing.  If you do not believe I will take your life, you may certainly believe that I will take the lives of your comrades.  Continue to defy me and more deaths will follow."

*          *

Tia made her way through the dense undergrowth of the Grandidi Forest into a clearing, moving as quietly as possible.  Seifer and Quistis, following behind her, made no noise at all.  Paths seemed to form around the experienced SeeDs, only to close behind them after the warriors passed.  Tia envied their skill.

An unexpected sound caught Tia's attention.  Quistis snapped her fingers again, calling for attention.  Tia turned to face Quistis.

Quistis showed a hand with all the fingers spread: the signal for enemy, target, or suspect.

She pointed off to the group's left, indicating the creature's location.

Seifer touched his hand to his ears, palm open: _I hear_.

Quistis tapped her hand on her right arm to signal _Leader,_ and nodded at Tia.

Tia's mind raced.  The creature had started stalking them.  She'd known that the team had entered its territory, but she had no idea that the monster had come so close to them.  She needed to make a decision, and fast.

Tia flashed an okay signal.

Then she pointed to Seifer and made a fist, holding her arm so it formed a right angle: _you – freeze.  He returned an "okay"              _

She pointed to Quistis and held her arm straight out, fist clenched, and opened it into a spread palm.  _Magic.  _She raised her arm directly over her head.  _Cover this area._  She then pointed to a destination and pumped her fist once, _Hurry up._

Instructions given, Tia moved away from Seifer as well – waiting.

They'd barely had a chance to take up positions when the forest exploded.  The creature erupted from behind its cover of bushes, sending wood splinters flying everywhere.

Its appearance had not improved since the last time Tia saw it.  

It stood just shy of two meters tall, and had ruddy red skin.  It had a humanoid cast about it, with the exception of the oversized, pyramidal head.  This singular apparatus lacked any visible sense organs or any other recognizable features, but somehow, impossibly, the creature could see, for it moved towards Seifer with absolute certainty.  In one great hand, the thing wielded an enormous sword, the blade of which stood as tall as Tia herself.  Despite the weight of this massive weapon, it still moved incredibly fast, lifting its weapon to strike Seifer.

Seifer turned to rise, Hyperion seeming to materialize in his hand as he did so.  He rolled to one side, a burst of fire scorching the air above his head, striking the creature in the face.  Seifer moved with unerring precision: had he dodged one heartbeat later, the creature's blade would have bifurcated him; one heartbeat sooner and Quistis' spell would have burnt him alive.

Quistis' spell had as much effect on the creature as a sneeze: startling, but otherwise harmless.  Still, it provided the SeeDs with the opening to turn the battle in their favor.  Before Tia had a chance to asses the situation, she plunged forward, her kama – twin hand sickles – drawn.

Seifer sliced at the monster's legs from his vantage point at the ground.  One knee buckled with the impact and Tia leapt to strike the creature as well, one razor-sharp sickle slicing a long gash along the thing's sword arm.  It responded by awkwardly whipping its arm back around, hitting Tia in the side with the pommel of the sword.  The blow didn't have the creature's full strength behind it, Tia knew, but would still leave a bruise.

Seifer had regained his feet by this point, darting inside the monster's reach.  His gunblade bit into the thick hide of its stomach.  A muffled report sounded as Seifer squeezed Hyperion's trigger, compounding the blade's damage.  Even though the creature lacked a visible mouth, it managed to roar at the pain, the noise somehow echoing inside their heads.

"Everybody down!" yelled Quistis.  She stepped forward out of the forest, weaving her arms in an intricate pattern, tracing a magical design in the air.  At the end, she clapped her hands together, and spread them apart quickly.  When she did, a row of gleaming crystal daggers hung in front of her.  She gestured at the monster, and they flew forward, imbedding themselves deep in its skin.

"Don't kill it!" Tia shouted, trying to keep the mission's goal in mind.  She chanted a spell of her own, and watched as the air around the creature started to ripple and shimmer.  The monster went to swing at Seifer but it could not move at full speed.  The magic spell, intended to stop it, merely slowed it down.  Relentless, it pressed on, continuing its swing, shaking off the spell.

"Sorry, kid," Seifer said through clenched teeth.  "Time to end this."

He leapt at the monster, inserting his blade in the creature's larynx.  Seifer twisted his body powerfully, pulling the trigger of his gunblade at the same time, so Hyperion tore out one side of the creature's throat.  Grievously wounded, the creature dropped its massive sword, clutching at its neck as it fell to the ground.

"Kill it," Seifer instructed.

Tia looked to Quistis, who merely nodded.

Tia walked over to the monster, still writhing on the ground, grasping at its partially severed throat.  She raised both of her kama high in the air and brought them down quickly, piercing its heart in one clean motion.  The creature's flailing stopped instantly.

"I wanted to capture it," Tia said.

"I know," Quistis replied, "but you saw how that thing shook of your spell.  We wouldn't have been able to bind it magically."

"And we don't know how it would react to chemical tranquilizers," Seifer chimed in, "which is why we didn't pack any."

Tia asked Quistis, "Why wasn't it immune to your second spell?  The one with the daggers?"

" The summoning of the daggers was magical – the daggers themselves were not."

"Yeah, about that spell," Seifer said.  "How come I've never seen it before?"

 "I'm a woman of many secrets," she smiled.  

"I guess so," he answered.  Then, looking at the corpse at their feet: "Anyway, we'd better figure out how we're going to get this thing back to Garden."

"Think there's enough space here for the _Ragnarok _to land?" Quistis asked.

Seifer glanced around the clearing.  "Yeah, should be.  I think Nida could land it."

Tia looked aghast, her mouth hanging open.  "You can't seriously be thinking of calling in the _Ragnarok_ just to pick us up for the mission.  And to get Captain Nomura to fly for us personally?"

Seifer laughed.  "What, you want to carry this corpse all the way to the coast so we can call for a boat?  How much longer do you think that will take?"

"But it seems so... wasteful."

"Privileges of rank, kid."

"Really, Tia, we _could haul the body to the coast and pick up a boat there," Quistis said.  "And we'll do it if you decide that's the best thing.  However, Seifer and I are telling you that we can pull rank and get the _Ragnarok _to pick us up.  If we do that, we'll be back at Garden before dark.  This is your mission, so you make the call."_

Tia paused for a moment, thinking.  "Okay.  Let's fly."

*          *

The arrival of the _Ragnarok and the loading of the monster's corpse passed without incident.  Nida relished the challenge of landing the ship in the small space provided by the clearing, and welcomed the warriors aboard with all the bonhomie of an innkeeper greeting weary, paying travelers._

As they flew back to Garden, Tia said, "Boy, am I glad we took care of that monster.  I feel like some of the failure from my first mission has been wiped away."

Quistis frowned a little.  "Tia, I explained this before: your first mission isn't measured in terms of success or failure.  It's about a lesson learned.  There was no money at stake, and no one got hurt, and you certainly learned from it, so it was an unqualified success."

Tia shook her head, long red hair moving in a cloud around her.  "Yeah, but compare it to your first mission!  Your squad killed what, 80 monsters?"

Quistis paused for a long moment.  One long moment passed into several long moments.  Several long moments lapsed into an uncomfortable silence before Quistis spoke again.  "My first mission was... an exceptional situation.  Don't use it as a basis for comparison."

"Why not?"  Tia asked.  Quistis had no expression on her face.  Tia turned to Seifer.  "Why not?"

"Sorry, kid," Seifer replied.  "Vow of silence."

"What?  'Vow of silence?'  What's the big secret?"

Tia looked from Quistis to Seifer and back again.  Finally, Quistis spoke.

"Okay.  I'll tell you," she said.  "But you're oath-bound not to repeat it."

"Understood," Tia said, nodding, eyes wide.

"My first mission took place," Quistis said, "when I was..."

*          *

...thirteen years old, Cadet Quistis Trepe sat in class, waiting eagerly for homeroom to end.  The youngest cadet in Balamb Garden's history, Quistis planned to petition for the right to run her first mission.  If she succeeded, it would add to her already impressive academic record.  But Quistis had a much more personal stake in this mission.

Finally, the bell rang.

"Dismissed," said Instructor Alekhine.  Quistis rose and approached the Instructor's desk, taking a few deep breaths as she walked.

"Yes, Quistis?" the Instructor asked as he saw her approaching.

"Instructor Alekhine, I'd like to run my first mission."

"Quistis, don't you think you're a bit young to run a mission?"  She hated the question, and she hated the Instructor's tone: both patronized her.

"Age has nothing to do with it," she said firmly.  "I'm more qualified than most cadets older than I am.  I'm ready for this.  I can handle it."

"Assuming I let you have this mission.  What would it entail?"

"Twenty-four hour monster crawl into the outlying forests around Garden.  I'd go with one other person."

"It certainly sounds like _you could handle that," Alekhine admitted.  "Have you selected your other person?"_

"I have," Quistis nodded.

"And it is?"

"Junior Cadet Leonhart."

The crux of Quistis' plan: to spend a full day, away from Garden, with Squall, just the two of them.  Of course, they'd spend the time fighting monsters, but for a student at Garden, you didn't get much closer to a date.

"It must be your lucky day, Ms. Trepe," smiled the Instructor, "because you've sold me on the idea.  But I'll do you one better.  You plan to be an Instructor someday, don't you?"

"Yes, sir," she said, unsure of his intent.

"Well, then you'll have to get used to dealing with squads.  You can run this mission, but I'm modifying it."

Quistis stammered, "How... how so?"

"Take junior cadet Leonhart, but take junior cadets Almasy and Dincht, as well."


	5. Comedy Tonight

Quistis felt the room swimming around her. She would have had enough trouble getting Squall to open up on an overnight trip, but bringing Seifer and Zell... She may as well have packed nitro and glycerin and shaken vigorously. This trip had just metamorphosed into a recipe for disaster.

"You... you want me to take Seifer and Zell?" she asked.

"That's right," replied Alekhine. "Is that a problem?"

Quistis could see the joke glittering in the Instructor's eyes. He knew what would happen to the mission with the lethal combination of Seifer, Squall, and Zell.

"No. No problem," she said, setting her jaw. Her personal agenda might have failed, but damned if she'd let one Instructor and three unruly junior cadets get in the way of her career.

"Good. Write up an amended profile, and go inform your troops. You leave tomorrow at dawn."

Quistis descended the steps into the Quad, looking around the airy facility for Seifer, Squall, and Zell. As she crossed, she heard a commotion erupting to one side. She hurried over, knowing that where trouble arose, she could count on finding Seifer.

Sure enough, after hurrying to the other side of the Quad, she found Seifer, holding Zell in a tight headlock, while Fujin restrained the fighter's arms. Raijin stood off to the side, laughing. Even having ganged up on Zell, they must have surprised him, to have incapacitated him so completely.

"Seifer!" she snapped, voice resounding authoritatively.

"Uh-oh," Seifer said, laughing at Quistis. "I'm in trouble now."

"Let him go, Seifer."

Seifer complied, releasing Zell, who dropped to his knees, massaging his neck.

"You gonna turn me in, Quisty?" asked Seifer, holding out his wrists. "Slap the cuffs on me? See that I get some demerits?"

"Why were you beating up Zell?"

"We weren't beating him up," Seifer shot back, crossing his arms over his chest. "This is official business of the Junior Disciplinary Committee."

"Official business, my ass," Quistis said, extending a hand to Zell.

Seifer snapped a finger and Fujin produced, as if from thin air, a folder. Seifer took it from her and removed a slip of paper: the day's schedule for the JDC. On it, she could see routine actions, like, "Patrol junior cadet's commons," or, "Scout the secret area." Most of the entries had Seifer's ornate script or Fujin's precise, engineer's printing about them. Halfway down on the page, though, Quistis noted a late addition, in Raijin's clumsy scrawl, "Give Zell Dincht a wedgie. He is a wiener."

Raijin had not, she noted, spelled. "wiener" correctly.

"See?" Seifer said. "It's on the schedule. If it's on the schedule, we have to do it. You of all people should understand that. Y'know, duty and all."

Quistis could do nothing but sigh in frustration as she passed the paper back to him. Her day had not shaped up according to plan, and things, she knew, would only get worse before they got better.

"So, anyway, Trepe, was there something you wanted?" Seifer asked.

"Actually, yes. Pack your gear. We're going on a mission. We leave tomorrow morning." Quistis pressed a Connecter into Seifer's hand.

"The hell? What if I don't wanna go?"

"Too bad," Quistis said. "Instructor Alekhine insisted you go along."

Zell laughed hysterically. "Hear that, Seifer! You're stuck! You're going on a mission!"

"Not so fast, Zell," Quistis replied. "You're going too." She handed him a Connecter as well.

"What?" Zell exclaimed. "Oh, man! Tomorrow is hot dog day!"

"Tough shit, runt. Looks like you're stuck too," Seifer said.

"Just get your stuff ready and meet me at the front gate at sunrise." Inwardly seething, she walked away from the two, hoping tomorrow would never come.

The hardest part of her quest lay ahead of her: convincing Squall to come along.

Quistis returned to the dormitories, showered and put on a fresh uniform, and put up her hair. She added a daub or two of perfume – just a touch, not overpowering, and set out on the hunt.

She stood in the mouth of the proverbial lion's den: outside the door of Squall's room. She recited to herself, willing the fear to leave her body. _I fear nothing. I am the master of my fear. I control my fear, I use my fear as a weapon. My fear moves over and through me. I fear, but I fear no thing._

When she'd reached an appropriate level of calm, and before she had a chance to second-guess herself, she knocked frantically on the door. In a few moments, Squall opened the door, clad only in his blue uniform pants and a white t-shirt.

He stood, framed in the doorway, watching her, totally silent, no expression on his face. He didn't even raise an eyebrow.

"Umm... hi?" she said.

No reaction. Squall had more in common with most statues than with the average twelve year-old boy. Quistis watched him, watching her, and ached. Squall's beauty made her heart hurt.

Quistis asked, "What are you doing?"

Squall blinked, a slow, almost reptilian process. His eyelids lowered and remained shut for an almost interminable moment before opening again. Other than that, he gave no indication that he had heard Quistis speak.

"I have some rather exciting news," she said. "Maybe you'd like to invite me in so we could talk about it?"

So saying, Quistis moved to one side, attempting to slip between Squall and the doorframe. His arm lanced out immediately, blocking her path.

"No," he said, voice mechanical. Finally, though, she could see some emotion in his eyes. Her attempted trespass, her effort to encroach on his domain threatened him, made him – what, afraid? Enraged?

"Well, anyway," she said. "I thought you'd like to know that I'm running a mission tomorrow into the nearby forests. It's a twenty-four hour monster crawl, and I'd like to bring you along. I have the profile here, and it's already been approved by the Powers That Be. We're meeting at sunrise at the front gate," so saying, she handed Squall her final Connecter.

He looked at the Connecter for a long moment, studying the panel without reading the words written on it. Finally, he looked back up at Quistis.

"Find someone else." He tossed the Connecter back to her and retreated into his room, closing the door in her face. She heard the click of the lock, and it sounded like something snapped. In her head, something did.

"Open this door, Squall Leonhart!" she bellowed, pounding on his door. "Open it right now or I'll break it down!" She continued pounding until she heard the lock clicking again, when she took a step back and put her hands on her hips.

"Now you listen here, Squall," she fumed, stomping her left foot on the floor. "You are going on this mission whether you like it or not. I don't care if you sulk the whole time, or if you don't say a word to me, but I've spent a lot of time and energy setting this mission up, and I'm not going to flush it down the toilet just because you're feeling antisocial. I outrank you, so if I say you're going on this mission, you are going on this mission, and that's that. End of sentence, exclamation mark. Understood?"

Squall watched her from behind veiled eyes and, when she had finished, wordlessly held out his hand. She handed him the Connecter. Without further comment, he turned his back on her and slammed the door in her face.

Quistis felt her bangs dancing in the breeze left by the slamming door.

"That could have gone better."

Dawn caressed Balamb Garden like a lover, and the four young warriors assembled at the building's front gate. Each carried a weapon, a backpack, plus one large sack containing the tent.

"Seifer, Zell, take the tent and we'll move out," Quistis ordered.

They'd barely cleared Garden when trouble reared its ugly head.

"Quistis," Zell whined, "tell Seifer to slow down! He's dragging me along!"

"Well, if you didn't have those stubby little legs, twerp, maybe we could move at a decent pace."

Quistis turned to look. Seifer carried the front half of the sack storing the tent, Zell carried the rear. Seifer's longer strides meant Zell had to move at double time to keep pace. Quistis, who by now had worked up a steady head of righteous indignation at her situation somehow had little sympathy for the smaller boy's plight.

"Deal with it," she muttered through clenched teeth.

"Ooh," Seifer said, laughing, "You're in a lovely mood today. Perhaps it's that time of the month?"

"Shut up, Seifer," she rolled her eyes.

"I hope, for our sake, it isn't," he continued. "The blood will have every monster in a two-mile radius after us."

"Shut up, Seifer," she repeated.

"I, myself, am not worried," he kept talking, ignoring her ire, "and we know you can handle yourself. No monster will want to eat Leonhart – he's stringy, too much gristle. But Zell: he looks like a particularly tasty morsel."

"Hey!" Zell objected.

"Yup. He's all nice and plump, and comes in a convenient snack size. I bet the monsters will be falling all over themselves to gobble him up."

"Quistis, make him stop!"

Squall marched on in silence. Quistis had to check behind her to make sure he hadn't deserted them. She wouldn't have blamed him for doing so.

"Why, the very sight of this delectable treat should set those fiends salivating. In fact, I would be surprised if we didn't have a T-Rexaur or two coming for dinner. Of course, for something that large, Zell would only be an appetizer, not a main course."

"Knock it off, Seifer! Quistis, you don't _really _think that they will be T-Rexaurs, do you?"

Seifer kept talking, "Oh, sure, Zell. Between Quistis' bleeding all over the place, and your crunchy-on-the outside, chewy-on-the-inside candy goodness, they'll be lining up to get at us."

"Quistis, what are we going to do if there are T-Rexaurs? Can we handle them? I don't want to fight T-Rexaurs! If it were in the training center, it'd be one thing, but here, we're away from the infirmary and..."

"Listen, the little girl is gonna wet herself."

"Enough!" she screamed, pivoting sharply on her heel to face the group. "I! Have! Had! It! This is to be a silent march until we reach the campsite! Pretend we're on a stealth mission. Pretend we're surrounded by hostiles. Pretend your jaw is wired shut. Pretend... oh, hell, pretend you're Squall! Just shut the hell up, both of you! I will say this one time, and one time only: until we reach the campsite, I don't want to hear another peep out of _any_ of you."

Quistis whirled around, her blonde hair moving in a cloud. She stormed off ahead of the group. Zell gaped. Squall shrugged. Seifer smirked.

The entourage hadn't proceeded ten yards when Seifer insisted on escalating the situation from bad to worse.

"Peep."

By nightfall, the group arrived at Quistis' chosen campsite with no bloodshed amongst the squad members and no monsters encountered. Quistis spent the time marching trying to reclaim control of her emotions. Quistis had earned herself a reputation not just as a prodigy, but also as someone with the propensity to act rather bossy – domineering, even – towards others. The mission, as it had shaped up so far, would not help dispel that myth. Unless she took action.

"Okay," she said, trying her best to sound cheerful. "We'll make camp here. Sound good?" She'd chosen a campsite conveniently near a small stream that gurgled pleasantly as they surveyed the area.

The three nodded at her, though whether they accepted her choice of campsites or merely feared her wrath, she could not tell. Finally, Zell stepped forward.

"I'll set up the tent!" he said, trying to drag the hefty bag from off Seifer shoulder.

"Great. Thanks, Zell," she replied, flashing him a smile. "Who wants to check the perimeter?"

Seifer's hand shot up like a bolt.

"Seifer it is. I don't think there will be anything worth worrying about right now, but we may get lucky. The real action should pick up overnight."

Seifer stalked off into the trees, disappearing amongst the cover like a gray ghost.

"Squall, why don't you help me collect some firewood. There should be plenty of usable material around here. That sound okay?"

Squall shrugged. "Whatever."

Seifer returned from his patrol just as Squall got the first flickers of life out of the fire.

"Okay," Quistis said, "we're doing well. How're you doing with that tent, Zell?"

"Fine..." he muttered, staring at a few pieces. "Everything's... what the hell...? Everything's fine."

"Shit," Seifer said throwing up his hands in the air. "The runt doesn't know how to put a tent together."

"I do too!" Zell said, leaping to his feet and turning on Seifer. "I'll have you know I'm practically an expert in assembling tents. I'm like a doctor in tentology!"

"Sure you are. So why isn't that bar fitting in place for you?"

Zell went back to the tent, to where a crossbeam had sprung loose. "This piece? It just needs to be... bent... a little. Just... like... this..."

Snap.

Quistis felt her heart sink as she saw the metal rod in Zell's hands snap in two. She knew, in that instant and beyond all doubt, that her mission would not have a happy ending.

"Oh, that's just great!" Seifer said, crossing his arms over his chest. "That's brilliant! I didn't want to come on this mission in the first place, and now I have to sleep outdoors because you broke our tent? Screw this!"

Seifer moved in a flash, lunging at Zell's backpack. Before anyone could react, Seifer had obtained the martial artist's sleeping bag and started striding towards the river.

"Hey! What the hell you doin'?" Zell cried, trying to catch up with Seifer, to no avail.

Seifer turned, smirked at Zell, and with definite malice, flung the sleeping bag into the river. Grinning, Seifer started walking back to the campsite, passing Zell on the way.

"Sleep tight, jackass."

Zell heaved his sleeping bag out of the water and threw it on the shore, panting – not from the exertion, but from rage.

Zell's temper, Quistis had learned, had two layers. Superficially, he had a short fuse, and seemed prone to explosive outbursts. Such reactions, though, only involved verbal attacks. A deeper level existed, one that required much more provocation in order to reach. Though not as accessible, these fits of temper had more in common with volcanic eruptions: built up through a long, slow process of constant pressure until culminating in a sudden, devastating and often violent release.

Seifer had tapped into the latter of these two.

"You... you sonuvabitch!" Zell screamed. "I'm gonna kill you!"

"Shut up, crybaby," Seifer said. "Just go take a nap in your soggy sleeping bag and we'll wake you when it's time to go home. Us grownups have got a job to do."

Zell rushed Seifer, bellowing incomprehensibly. Normally, Zell would have defeated Seifer in an unarmed match, but in his rage, Zell had lost focus. Rather than any kind of specific attack, he sought merely to throttle Seifer, who easily fended off the shorter man, grabbing away his hands and laughing.

"This is the best you can do?" Seifer chortled. "Some great fighter you turned out to be."

Seifer had so preoccupied himself with mocking Zell that he failed to notice Quistis approaching him. She grabbed Seifer by the ear and pulled as hard as possible.

"Holy shit!" he screamed, caught unaware by the pain. Quistis grappled him, swinging him around in front of her and pressing her knee into his crotch.

"Don't talk, just nod: you want me to knee you?" she asked.

Seifer shook his head no, frantically.

"Say 'please.'"

Seifer set his jaw, his eyes burned. Quistis forced her knee a little higher.

"Please..." The word came out sounding strangled.

"'Please' what?"

"Please don't knee me."

"Good," she said. "Now, I want you to apologize to Zell for the sleeping bag. I don't have to tell you what the punishment for refusal is."

Seifer breathed heavily, nostrils flaring in anger. She knew his mind, knew that he'd actually consider suffering the pain if it meant not apologizing. Finally, though, self-preservation won out.

"I'm sorry for throwing your sleeping bag in the river, Zell."

Zell laughed at Seifer's predicament. "Serves you right, you big bully."

Quistis released Seifer. "Shut up, Zell, or you're next."

Zell's eyes grew wide as plates. "But what'd I do?"

Quistis surveyed the campsite, the wreckage of her mission. She looked at it for a long moment, and thought prior to speaking, and when she did, she spoke with frightening calm to her voice.

"Here's what's going to happen: Seifer, go over to that tree. Squall, to that rock. Zell, next to the river. These are your assigned positions. You are not to move from them for any reason whatsoever. If we are clear on that point, you may proceed to your positions for the evening."

Squall and Seifer went for their backpacks, grabbing their sleeping bags.

"I said nothing about sleeping bags. There will be no sleeping bags for any of you. Seifer, what impacts the members of your squadron impacts you. If they go without, you go without. Squall, if you feel this decision is unfair, I suggest you find a time to thank Seifer for his actions. Now, I will repeat again: you may proceed to your positions for the evening. I am going to go into the forest and carry out this mission by slaying whatever monsters I find there. I will return for you at dawn, and if any of you have moved, you can be sure that you will regret it."

"...and so I went into the forest and spent the night there, and killed eighty-eight monsters before I came out," Quistis said.

"That... that's incredible!" Tia gasped. "I always thought it was your _squad_ that had that many kills, but it was you alone? That's... Well, there aren't any words for that."

"But you can see why I say that your first mission isn't about success or failure. It isn't an indicator of how well you'll do as a SeeD. It's about teaching you a lesson."

Tia nodded. "But there's one thing I'm still confused about. Why didn't all this come out on your mission report? I mean, the story of your first mission is legendary. How do you account for the discrepancy?"

The squad stood assembled before the gates of Garden, Quistis looking over them from one of the higher steps.

:"Okay, we all had a lousy time, and here's how it's going to be: none of us talk about this. Ever. I am going to file a mission report that says the tent was broken when we tried to put it together, so we slept in the open, but other than that, the rest of the mission went according to plan. We spent the night hunting monsters and have eighty-eight kills between us. None of us disputes the report and none of us mentions this sordid little affair to anyone as long as we live.

"I want you all to remember one thing – I don't like to bring it up, but I'll make an exception here – the one thing is this: I'm the best cadet to ever pass through this Garden. I'm the best there ever will be. And I'm not letting this get in my way. More importantly, if I find out that _any _of you talked, I will use my abilities to hunt you down, gain access to wherever it is you sleep, kill you, and make it look like an accident. If you doubt I can do it, remember who I am, and look into my eyes. I can, and I will. You talk, you die, and not in some lame metaphorical sense. I. Will. Kill. You. This mission – and this chapter in my life – is now over."

So saying, Quistis turned on her heel and stalked back into Garden, leaving the three young men to stare at her back, dumbfounded.

"Not my finest moment," Quistis admitted.

"Hey, if it makes you feel any better," Seifer offered, "it worked. None of us ever talked. Even Zell, and you know how he is with secrets."

"Okay, kids" Nida's voice crackled over the intercom, "we're setting down. Get your gear and that ugly monster carcass and let's go home."

Tia ran ahead to go file the mission report as Quistis and Seifer walked side-by-side down the gangplank.

"You know," Seifer said, "if not for your photographic memory, I'd think you left out the best part of that night.

"How could I forget?" Quistis replied.

Surreptitiously, Quistis crept back to the campsite, making sure the three junior cadets hadn't moved from their positions. When she'd checked up on them, she resumed her patrol, scouring the surrounding area for monster activity.

A short distance away from the site, she crossed paths with a T-Rexaur. The enormous dinosaur scented her at once and bellowed its challenge. Mad at the world, she roared back, pouring her rage into her voice.

_I don't even care, _she thought. _Let the damn thing eat me._

The monster came for her, dipping its neck low and trying to bite her. She lashed out with her whip and caught the monster on the tongue. Not terribly damaging, but certain to hurt like hell. She struck again, twice, taking out each of the monster's eyes, leaving it completely open to whatever further attacks she wanted to unleash.

She danced to the side and hit the monster in the flank. It whirled around, trying to find the source of the attack. Quistis had to duck to avoid its flailing tail.

Suddenly, the monster erupted from the inside, its entrails falling to the ground.

She stared in wonderment as the beast toppled over. Kneeling, she examined the wound – a long slice, as if from a sword. Then, from behind her:

"So, you gonna thank me, or what?"

She stood up, whirling around to find Seifer, standing with his gunblade over one shoulder. She launched herself at him, knocking the gunblade out of his hand in the process.

"What are you doing away from your rock?" she roared, suddenly screaming as loud as she possibly could. Her fists beating against his chest. "Why aren't you at your rock?" she asked, voice softening as she broke into tears.

"Shhh..." he said. "Hey, calm down, okay, blondie? Don't cry. Come on. What's wrong?" He led her off to sit on a log, away from the corpse of the massive dinosaur, which had already started attracting flies.

"Everything... This mission," she sobbed. "Just... everything."

"Well, I know things aren't going exactly to plan, but we're all surviving. That's a big plus, right?"

"No. I was supposed to go on this mission with Squall, and then Alekhine screwed it up, and nothing's gone right, and you and Zell are fighting, and I don't know how I'm going to live up to this back at Garden, and I just wanted to be alone with Squall and now everything's ruined!"

"Oh," Seifer nodded. "You wanted some alone time with Squall."

"Yeah."

"You know, Squall's not exactly the greatest guy. He's kind of... boring. And he doesn't seem to know too much about women."

"That's okay. I don't know too much about men."

"Well, he doesn't even know when he's got a great girl who wants to be with him."

"Yeah, tonight really proved what a great girl I am."

They sat on the log in silence, Quistis beside Seifer. Minutes passed, and neither said anything.

"Quistis?"

Quistis turned to face him. "Yes?"

Seifer kissed her.

As simple as that, he just kissed her. One moment they just sat there, sharing the night air. The next moment, they had their lips pressed together, the taste of her tears salty between them.

It lasted for only a moment, and then they separated. Seifer blinked a few times, looking at Quistis.

"I'm... I'm going to go back to my rock now."

And then he vanished into the night, leaving Quistis alone. She sat there for a few minutes longer, changed somehow, before she stood up and resumed her patrol.

"My first kiss," she said.

"Mine too," smiled Seifer.

"And yet, somehow, we've never spoken about it until today."

"Have you ever told anyone?" he asked.

"No."

"Me neither."

Quistis laughed. "I'm sort of glad. I don't want Zell to get jealous of me."

"I can see that," Seifer grinned. "He can get a little... overzealous... sometimes."

Quistis groaned. "Here we were having a nice sentimental moment and you had to ruin it with a cheap pun."

"What can I say? Some of us have to compensate. We can't all kill _eighty-seven _monsters in one night."

"Eighty-eight," Quistis said, meaningfully. "It _would _have been eighty-nine."


	6. Succession of Witches

Fujin sat in Squall's office – formerly Squall's office, at least – staring at the man opposite her.  Mallis watched her, watched the hatred burning behind her eye, and took pride in the indomitable spirit of his child.  Living in the detention center hadn't broken her, nor had any of the countless other indignities he'd forced upon her.  They'd reduced her rations, taken away her rations, fed her on leftovers, deprived her of sleep, taken away her clothes, and still she fought.  In the burning of her eye, he saw that she continued to analyze the situation, knew that should he afford her the slightest chance, she would escape.

Or, given half a chance, she would kill him.

"The time has come," Mallis said, "to teach you about your background.  Your heritage."

"FAMILY?" she asked, contempt heavy in her voice.

"No mere biography this," he replied.  "You need to know the history of your land.  What it means to be my child.  To fully appreciate the blood that flows through your veins, and the duty you have, it is necessary to understand something about the country of your birth."

"ESTHAR."

"Correct, in a sense," he nodded.  "But there is much more than that.  Esthar is an ancient country, with its roots firmly engrained in the history of the world.

"The story begins before countries, before nations, before armies, before flags.  It begins when mankind was but a shadow of the species it is now.  From the earliest days of humanity, it has been evident that certain individuals have had a degree of power of which other men can only dream."

"SORCERESS."

"That is the modern word for it, yes," he nodded again.  "There have been many other words, but all refer to those persons so gifted with a fragment of the Godhead, those persons in whom the fires of creation burn more brightly.  The modern belief is that they are descended from the god Hyne.

"In the early days, when the world was fire and blood, one such individual, a Sorceress named Khagrim, used her powers to rule over her tribe.  Thus was the destiny of Esthar forged.

"It became a country ruled by its Sorceresses or, more rarely, Sorcerers.  They guided the land like god-kings.  And as history teaches us, every Sorceress has a Knight.  The Knights became their protectors, their enforcers, their will-workers.

"Esthar thrived under its succession of Sorceresses.  The country flourished and grew as Sorceresses flocked to its banner, and their Knights came with them.  Whole dynasties formed, power passing from parent to child.  Some families ritually sacrificed the parent when the child came of age, in order to prevent the power from growing stagnant.  Into one such family was the Great Queen Adel born, and she was by far the proudest of her line.

"Power burned brilliantly in her, even before she became a Sorceress.  As a child, she studied at the College of Magic, for a time, but before long, her radiance outshone that which even the most experienced professor possessed.  Everywhere she went, she forged the world of dross into one of gold, merely by exercising the power of her will.  Her parents, Sorcerers both, sacrificed themselves to her greatness when she turned thirteen.

"Word of her power spread, and soon, other Sorceresses came to her, sacrificing themselves so that their power might live on in her.  Their power swirled around her, and in it, she saw her future.  Soon, she sought out those Sorceresses who would not give their lives to her, and she consumed them, body and spirit.

"This is how I came to know her, in that time when she was... consolidating her power.  Threatened by the inevitability of the Great Queen, and seeing her own demise in the young Adel, the then-Queen of Esthar, Ushat, sent a full battalion of soldiers to eliminate her.  I was with them.

"I saw her across the battlefield, and it was if I were staring into the sun.  The radiance that surrounded her dazzled me.  Ushat's power was incredible, but it was a flickering candle compared to the Great Queen.  I saw her, standing proud and defiant across the field from us, and I knew what I had to do.

"I woke up, as if from a dream, to find the entire battalion slaughtered.  I, myself, stood atop a pile of corpses, elbow-deep in blood.  She had never moved.  Our eyes met across that crimson-stained plain, and she smiled.

"I felt her power flowing into me, her magnificence suffusing my very soul, and I knew: from that moment on, we were one.  Sorceress and Knight.  The web of fate had tied us together, inextricably, and I was forever her servant.

"We slew Ushat that very night.  I restrained Ushat as Adel feasted upon the weak Queen's still-beating heart.  She claimed the crown of Esthar before the blood had dried upon her face.

"What followed then was the most exquisite period in history.  For the sake of my Queen, I hunted down every remaining Sorceress in Esthar.  I do not speak lightly when I say Ushat received the full measure of the Great Queen's mercy.  Countless others were not so fortunate.  A lucky few managed to flee, Sorceress Edea Kramer among them.

"WAR?" Fujin asked, shifting slightly in her chair.

"Ah, the Sorceress War."  Mallis nodded.  "Yes, that came from this time as well.  We fought the war strategically, striking at those areas where Sorceresses congregated.  All our military action was a cover for our true goal.  _My true goal: to capture Sorceresses and bring them back to the throne of the Great Queen, that she might devour them.  Your mother was one such Sorceress."_

"WHAT?" Fujin asked, sitting upright.

"You heard correctly.  Your mother was a Sorceress, brought back to the Empress.  Adel's plans were nothing if not long-reaching, and so she demanded a child."

"WHY?"

"That she might pass her powers on to you.  You were to have been her heir, child of a powerful Sorceress and the Great Queen's Knight, raised as daughter to Adel.  Of the many children I fathered, of the many Sorceresses who bore me children, you showed the most promise, the most potential, and so you alone were spared."

"SPARED?"

"Adel's... tastes... were many and varied.  Your half-brothers and –sisters satisfied her well.  Adel never planned to die, of course, but in the event that she had, you always stood ready to succeed her."

"LAGUNA."

Mallis' face twisted into a grimace.

"Yes.  Laguna Loire, who bumbled his way to empire.  He tricked Adel into the Sorceress Memorial, sealing her powers, ending her reign."

"MEMORIAL.  WHY?"

"Why was it built?  The Empress recognized that her ascension, while remarkable, could be theoretically duplicated.  For that reason, she ordered research into ways by which a Sorceress' power could be blocked.  Thus, the contemptible Odine commenced his research into the sealing of Sorceress' powers."

"DISLIKE?"

"Odine is beneath contempt.  He's nothing but a profiteer – all he cares for is his research.  He is absent any notion of duty to Queen or country.  He sniffed Laguna's stench on the wind and, as soon as the balance of power shifted, traded sides so he could continue his work uninterrupted.  His time will come, though, soon enough."

"HOW?"

"Because, my dear," Mallis said, leaning forward across Squall's desk, "we are going to revive the Great Queen, you and I."

"WHAT?"

"Imagine it," Mallis leaned back.  "You finally achieve your fate, and inherit the Sorceress Adel's incomparable power.  At the same time, we strike directly at the heart of the two who brought her down – Laguna and Squall – by killing the Sorceress who _has _Adel's power."

Fujin felt a sickening tightness in her chest as Mallis spoke.  Her mouth, when she opened it, had dried.

"RINOA."

"Indeed."

*          *

He walks now, and it scares the blue coat men.

He hungers now, and it scares the blue coat men.

He smiles now, and it terrifies them.


	7. Torn Apart

_Who knew the boy with the heart of a lion was really a paper tiger?_

Squall squinted, trying to focus on the paper before him, trying to block out the voice in his head. He pushed on, despite the headache, forcing himself to read the latest mission reports, driving himself onward with a soldier's discipline.

_Who knew the boy with the heart of a lion was really a paper tiger?_

Still, the voice followed him. Sought him out in the secret corners of his mind. Seeped in around the cracks of his consciousness. Chipped away at his resolve. Tried to drag him down into the mire of despair.

Few things had ever sapped Squall's will to fight, but the damnable voice chilled him to the core.

_Who knew the boy with the heart of a lion was really a paper tiger?_

_Who knew..._

_Who..._

Cursing, Squall stood up, shoving his chair away from the desk vigorously. He crossed to the window, watching the Garden spread out beneath him. The people counting on him. The people waiting for him to make the next move. Even those he'd managed to save, he still failed. They never should have abandoned Balamb Garden, never should have left their comrades behind.

But for the cowardice on his part.

_Who knew..._

Sometimes he could reassure himself, believing that he did all he could, that had they not withdrawn, everyone would have fallen to Mallis' troops. Sometimes he ran through the events of that day again, trying to find the critical moment where he lost control, to reassess the battle and figure out what he did wrong.

No matter what he did, however, the voice followed him. Echoed in his ears while he worked, haunted his dreams at night.

"Screw it," he said, stalking to the elevator, knowing he couldn't accomplish much in his current state. He needed to get away from Garden, needed to move. The doors whooshed open, lowering him down to the ground level.

"Commander Leonhart," said Instructor Euve, a middle-ranking SeeD who stood waiting for the elevator, "I was just on my way to see you." In his hand he held a hefty folder, which he extended to Squall.

Squall put up his hands in protest. "Find someone else to deal with it," he said.

"But, Commander."

"Xu, or Quistis, or someone like that," he continued. "I'm done for the day."

Without waiting for a reply, he stalked off, heading for the parking garage.

His baby waited for him in his private spot: a dark silver Tempest convertible. He first drove a Tempest during the parade mission, in Deling City, hijacking the car for his assault on the Sorceress. Even as his mind had whirled, contemplating his attack, he'd succumbed to the seductive rumble of its engine. Shortly after the Second Sorceress War, he'd purchased one in a rare moment of self-indulgence. On relocating to Esthar Garden, he'd replaced the car before buying anything else.

He opened the door and put the top down. As he inserted the key, the car sprang to life under his touch, its roaring motor thrilling him. Squall backed out of the spot and punched the accelerator, abandoning the parking garage in a squeal of tires.

Soon the road opened up before him, and he floored the accelerator, the car reacting instantly. His right hand moved of its own accord, shifting between gears with a practiced ease. The scenery flashed past in an incomprehensible blur and the Garden behind him diminished to a tiny speck in his rear-view mirror.

_Who knew..._

He pressed harder, pushing the powerful engine to its limit, running from the sound of Mallis' mocking voice and burying it in the throaty roar of the Tempest. He drove with no particular destination in mind, intending only to flee from the laughter in his head. The car pointed itself towards the crystal city of Esthar, shimmering like a jewel on the horizon.

He drove the streets of the lower city, far beneath the arcing skyways and hovering vehicles, not knowing what he sought. Soon enough, though, he found it: Selphie's little yellow car, custom license plate BOOYAKA – a special birthday gift from Laguna.

He pulled into the spot beside her and sprang out of his car, looking at the building where he found himself: some sort of dance club, apparently. Acting completely on instinct, he pressed on, heading inside, still following a reason he couldn't comprehend.

The music closed in around him as he entered, and the crowd threatened to strangle him. Nevertheless, he cut his path through the dancers, making his way to a table at the end where he saw Selphie, sullenly contemplating a glass of liquor. He stood before her, as if asking permission, until she noticed him. With her head, she gestured to a seat at the table. Squall sat down.

Silence. He watched her for a time, neither of them moving or speaking. Finally, he broke through the stillness.

"What are you doing here?"

She raised the glass an inch or two off the table. "Drinking."

"Why?"

"Irvine doesn't like to see me drink, so I drink where he can't see me," she replied, emptying the glass.

"Oh."

Minutes passed and neither spoke. Selphie stared at her glass and sighed.

"Well, I'm not getting any drunker like this. You want something?" she asked, gesturing to a nearby waiter.

"No," Squall replied.

"Right, you don't drink."

"Right."

They sat in silence while the waiter procured her another drink. He delivered it, and Selphie looked as if he'd placed salvation in a glass. She reached for it, lifting it to her lips.

"Don't," Squall said, the word sliding out involuntarily, carrying with it the tone of a plea, a note of subtle desperation in his voice.

"Sorry?" she said, unsure she'd heard him correctly.

"Just... don't," he said, unable to name a specific motive. All he could say is that he didn't want her to take that drink. He suddenly feared the drink, found himself passionately devoted to her avoiding the liquor. He couldn't bear to see it pass her lips.

"Okay," she shrugged, sliding it aside. Squall released a breath he didn't realize he'd started holding.

They sat. More minutes ticked by. A full half-hour had elapsed since Squall first found Selphie sitting by herself.

"This sucks," Selphie said, resting her head on her hands. "Mallis comes along and suddenly two of the finest fighters Garden ever produced are reduced to a couple of bums sitting in a bar.

"I mean, we took down Ultimecia," she continued, slamming her fist on the table. "We did Time Compression and walked away from it. But now what are we supposed to do? Just go knock on his door and invite him to slaughter us? Let him get away with the whole thing? Tell me we're not going to let him get away with it," she said, reaching across the table and taking his hand, squeezing it emphatically.

"No," he replied, shaking his head.

"We're going to get him, right?"

"Yes."

"And make him pay?"

"Yes."

"Good." She did not release his hand.

They sat like that, unspeaking, for another ten minutes before Selphie asked him, "So what's your plan?"

"I don't have one," Squall shrugged.

"You know when we're going back?"

"After the field exam," he said. "Maybe."

"Why so hesitant?"

"Don't want everyone to get killed," he confessed. "Last time was bad enough."

"I'll say."

"Squall," she said eventually, sighing and looking over at her discarded glass, "I really need that drink."

The inexplicable feeling of dread rose in him again. He didn't know why, but once again, he just couldn't bear it if she took that drink.

"Dance with me?"

"What?" she laughed.

"Dance with me," he repeated, as surprised as she at the words coming from his mouth.

"An invitation to dance from Squall Leonhart?" One corner of her mouth turned in a cruel smile. "This is an occasion. I can't imagine you like this kind of music," she said, gesturing around, indicating the wailing guitar of the band onstage.

"Humor me," he said, rising from his seat, still holding her hand.

She looked at him with a mixture of curiosity and suspicion, trying to gauge a motive even he couldn't define. Finally, she stood, the ghost of a smile flitting across her face. "What the hell," she said.

Selphie moved easily, like sunlight, as if she could make herself forget what had happened. Unlike the poseurs and dilettantes surrounding her, she didn't dance to conceal, she didn't dance with any kind of hidden message or innuendo. She danced as a revelation, the unmasking of what she held within her. She danced rage and pain and grief, letting it all take shape through her body.

Squall watched her, not even attempting to move to the music. He'd danced a little at the start of the song, but quickly found himself overwhelmed by the depth of the emotions she released. She never noticed his absence, so caught up in her own experience. She had a cloud around her, carrying with it months of pent-up emotion.

The song ended, and Selphie's eyes refocused on the world around her, seeing Squall again. As the next song, a slow number, started, she moved close to him, placing his hands on her small waist. She wrapped her arms around his neck and they started to move in rhythm.

He looked down at her jade eyes and saw the hurt in them, the deep psychic beating she'd taken when Mallis had killed the junior cadets in her charge.

"I failed them," she whispered, her voice heavy with regret.

"There was nothing we could have done," he said, shaking his head.

"I... I should have stayed with them," she insisted.

"You're... too valuable... too important," he replied, brushing a stray strand of hair away from her face.

"...Squall!" she choked out, releasing her arms from his neck and hugging him tight, burying her face in his chest. His arms enfolded her easily as she sobbed, her cries muffled by his shirt.

He held her like that, listening to her cry, wishing he knew what to say. Her tears had just started to subside, though, when his phone rang. Squall took a step back, awkwardly, and reached for it. He glanced at the message displayed on the screen and turned to Selphie.

"I have to go."

"Okay. I'll be okay."

He blinked. "Come with me."

"I'm sure it's ultra-important Commander stuff. You don't need me."

"Come with me," he pressed, wiping the tears off her face. "Please."

"Okay."

"You okay to drive?"

"Yeah. I'm fine."

"Good. Let's go."

They drove back to Garden, Squall reigning in the engine of his car in order to keep Selphie's less powerful vehicle in sight. In short order, they arrived back at Garden and parked their cars, moving briskly through the lower floors to the elevator, oblivious to everything else but each other. The elevator glowed with their shared energy.

The elevator released them at the middle floor of Squall's office.

"Follow me," Squall said, eyes strangely glittering "I have something I want to show you."

He led Selphie by way of the stairs to the lower floor of his office, to the door sealed off by way of a retinal scanner. He leaned forward, allowing the machine to confirm his identity, and it hissed open002E

Squall turned to Selphie, his face in a secret half-smile, arm gesturing into the now-open room. "Welcome to Avatar."

Selphie felt her jaw drop. Avatar: SeeD's most precious secret. The source for all of its key intelligence. Even she, the organization's most highly ranked intelligence officer, had never seen the inner workings of the system. Only two people in the history of SeeD knew the true nature of Avatar, and one of them – Headmaster Cid – had taken the secret to his grave. Speculation about Avatar ran wild. Some postulated that the system took the shape of an artificial intelligence capable of modeling real-world simulations with unerring accuracy. Others that Cid harnessed the energy of a fantastically powerful Guardian Force, enslaving it on SeeD's behalf. Both theories consisted of pure conjecture, though.

"Squall... are you sure... I mean... Do you really want to let this slip?"

He nodded, still smiling.

She walked into the room, and he followed her, the door whispering shut behind them.

Selphie's felt almost staggeringly disappointed at the mundane nature of the Avatar room. A large desk dominated the room, with a clear black surface. A comfortable black chair sat behind it. A monitor of one corner of the room showed cycling views of various security cameras throughout the Garden, focusing on the areas around Squall's office.

"Okay...," Selphie said. "So what's the big secret?"

Squall pulled the chair out from the table and gestured for her to sit. She did so. He took her hand and placed it upon the surface of the desk. Instantly, it lit up, displaying a map of the world, with a blinking red beacon on Galbadia City.

"Avatar," Squall said, almost reverently.

He took her hand again and touched it to the beacon, which zoomed the map to a local display of the Galbadia City. The map had dim red dots in addition to the persistently blinking one.

"Those are our Avatars in that city," he explained. "Our sources in the field. People who report information up the ladder, which makes its way here. Once it comes here, I send it off to you in the intelligence division."

"But who are they?" Selphie asked. "Are they SeeDs? People we've bribed? On our payroll? What?"

Squall broke into a full-out grin. "That's the beauty part. Anyone who attends Garden but doesn't join SeeD is gently tested for their willingness to act as an informer or an intelligence agent. Would they like to help out their old friends by photocopying some papers now and then? Maybe taking the odd picture or passing along a piece of gossip? Most people get a kick out of playing secret agent. And, if they ever find themselves in financial trouble, we're always willing to lend a hand."

"That's brilliant," Selphie admitted.

"Cid knew what he was doing."

"When he wasn't monstrously insane," she muttered.

Squall shrugged by way of admission.

"So what's this blinking red dot?"

"That means someone has something to tell me. Just touch it to read the report."

Selphie pressed her finger to the blinking red light. They read the report in silence.

"What do you make of it?" she asked.

"Same thing you do," he replied. "Mallis."

"Want me to have some people check into it?"

"Yeah," he nodded.

The report came from an employee at a weapons manufacturer. According to the report, the company had started working its employees overtime, pushing them hard to complete "an enormous order for a major client." The snag, however, came from the fact that no client existed. No one had purchased the weapons. No money had changed hands.

A buzzer sounded, and Squall and Selphie glanced up at the monitor to see Quistis, riding the elevator up to Squall's office. Squall rose from his position crouched at the Avatar table and moved to the door, and Selphie followed behind him. They met Quistis at the stairs.

"Squall, I'm glad I caught you," she panted, out of breath.

"What's up?" he replied.

"I just figured out how to beat Mallis."


	8. Pray

Laguna knelt silhouetted against the massive window, head bowed, the girl beside him, sunlight streaming over their forms.  The choir on the floor below sang with an unearthly beauty, their voices resonating, making the crystal windows in the cathedral vibrate and hum.

Squall felt acutely out of place.  He lived a life of blood and death, and didn't belong in this house of worship.  Faith and religion had no place in his world.  Some SeeDs found that those things helped alleviate the doubt and uncertainty of the mercenary lifestyle, but Squall had never found it within him to believe.  

He stepped forward, gingerly, approaching Laguna, unsure if he should interrupt his father's reverie.  After a moment, Laguna looked up.

"Hello, Squall," he smiled.

"Hello, Laguna," then, nodding to the girl, "Hello, Sis."

"Hi," she smiled as well.

"Welcome to the Lady of Mercy," Laguna said, rising to his feet.  "My renovation of this church was the first project I officially undertook as President of Esthar."

"What did it used to be?" Squall asked.

"Adel's temple to herself," Laguna frowned, his nose wrinkling as he did so.

"I like this more."

"It's much nicer dedicated to your mother than to that... monster," Laguna replied.

"To Raine?"  Squall cocked his head.

Laguna gestured expansively, indicating the massive marble sculpture that dominated the upper floor: a beautiful woman, with her arms outstretched, as if offering absolution to the viewer.  She had magnificent, intricately carved angel wings, stretching ten feet wide, each feather individually carved.  As Squall looked at the woman's face, he recognized her:  his mother, Raine, a look of peace and serenity on her countenance.

"My friends from the Shumi village did the sculpture," Laguna explained.  "I offered to pay them, but they wouldn't hear of it."

"It's... nice."  Squall said.

"It lets me feel close to her," Laguna admitted, watching the statue quietly.  "But anyway, what did you want to meet with us about?"

"May we sit?"

Laguna nodded, gesturing to the padded benches off to one side.  They sat, Laguna next to Ellone, with Squall on a bench facing them.  

"Quistis proposed a plan to me, a way that might let us retake Balamb Garden without getting everyone killed."

"I'll do what I can," Laguna said.

"Me too," Ellone nodded, "but I'm afraid I'm not much use in a fight."

"The problem with any assault on Balamb Garden is that to retake it with any degree of finality, we need to launch a full-scale invasion, and that's not something SeeD is equipped to do right now.  Our only other option is to take out General Mallis, and hope everything crumbles without him."

"I can see where that poses some problems," Laguna chimed in.

"Right," Squall nodded.  "We only have limited intelligence on how he's maintaining Garden right now, so we can't formulate any kind of plan.  Any assassination attempt on him is blind, using only what we _used _to know about Garden.  And I don't know that I'm comfortable risking someone like Irvine against the entirety of Mallis' army in an eyes-closed breach."

"So what's the plan, then?" Laguna asked.

"Well, the best hope for a successful attack is from the inside, but we don't know how he's treating our people in there.  We need fresh troops to mount the attack."  Squall turned to Ellone.

"That's where you come in."

"Me?" she said.

"Yes," he nodded.  "We use your power and send me and two others back to just after Mallis claimed Garden, when things are still chaotic and they're rounding up captives.  We strike at him then, cutting the head off The Storm and, hopefully, reviving the people who've been captured." 

"Okay," said Ellone, "but I can only use my power on people I know."

"We thought of that," replied Squall.  "Remember the time you spent at Balamb Garden, before you went of to hide with Edea's White SeeDs?  The plan is to take a list of everyone captured in the attack on Balamb Garden, and have you scan it for people you know well enough to use your power on.  Once we find three matches, we're in business."

"There's another problem," she shot back.  "We still don't know if I have the power to change the past.  I mean, I sent you back with Uncle Laguna, we couldn't change anything."

"But I didn't know what I was supposed to be changing," Squall said.  "This time, I'll have a specific purpose, a mission.  I'll be going back with the intent to kill Mallis.  When you sent me back with Laguna, I was just caught by surprise, and didn't know where I was or what to do."

Laguna started scratching the back of his head in the way that meant he had something particularly uncomfortable to say.  Squall turned to him.

"There's... something else...  I've sort of been putting off telling you, but I don't think it can wait any longer."  Laguna said.

"What is it?"

"After imprisoning Adel in the Sorceress Memorial, the rest of the government didn't exactly fold their hands and walk away from the table.  Our resistance movement was met with a certain amount of... resistance."

"And?"

"And the leader of it, as you can guess, was General Varrant – the man you know as General Mallis.  He put up a hell of a fight, and I wound up being the one who had to bring him down.  Personally."

"Okay.  How does this relate to Quistis' plan?"

"Because you were there."

 "What?"  Squall asked.

"You.  'The faeries.'  Ellone using her powers.  When I fought and defeated Varrant, you were there.  I lost my machine gun, and there was a gunblade nearby, and I picked it up – _you _picked it up, and _we _defeated Varrant."

"Oh."  Squall said, falling silent for a moment to process this.  "Well, I guess we have to do this, then.  Ellone will have to send me back to that time, and we'll worry about this plan later."

"Umm... problem.  Again."  Ellone said.  "I can't 'aim' for a day and time.  I don't have anywhere near that kind of precision.  I can only go based on projections I've already done, and say 'before' this one or 'after' that one.  So sending you back to the moment of that fight is an impossibility for me."

"That's okay, Elle," Laguna said, smiling.  "It does present some difficulty, though.  I mean, if Squall never goes back in time, then I never defeat Varrant, which totally changes the outcome of history.  So we need to figure out a way to use your power to send him back."

"I know who we could ask..." Ellone said meekly.

"Absolutely not."  Squall said.

"Out of the question."  Laguna said.

"No one likes him less than I do," she said.  "But he's the only option."

"He's a demented psychopath with a research grant.  I should have pulled his funding years ago," Laguna replied.  

"Look, if I'm okay with consulting him, we're doing it.  And that's that."  Ellone stood up and turned to look at Laguna.

"She's stubborn, but I love her anyway," Laguna said, giving his son a lopsided grin.

*          *

"Zo... you come for help from ze great Odine!" the diminutive doctor said, strutting around his office.

"Yes or no, Doctor.  Can you help us?" Laguna asked, distaste heavy in his voice

"And you, my dear," he said, moving over to Ellone.  "My, how you've grown."

Suddenly, Squall had interposed himself between Odine and the deathly pale Ellone, who, despite her bravado and courage, held a deeply rooted fear of the doctor, stemming from his kidnap of and experimentation on her.  No one saw Squall move.

"You touch her, you die."

"Oh-ho!" Odine laughed.  "I do remember you, young man.  And ze girl Rinoa?  Doing well, I hope."

Squall's hands clenched into fists.

"Squall," Laguna cautioned, "while I'd love to watch you beat the stuffing out of Odine, right now we need him.  Save it."

Squall maintained his position, keeping himself between Odine and Ellone, his jaw set rigidly.

"Now," Odine said, hopping up into the chair behind his desk.  "What did you need again?"

"We need a way to focus Ellone's power," Laguna explained, "so she can send Squall back to a specific time and place.  You've studied her talent, and we were hoping you could help."

"I zee," the doctor stroked his chin with an obvious theatricality.  "I am ze only man in ze world who can help you now.  And, ze only way I can help you, iz with zis!"

He turned around to the massive curtained window behind him and pulled the cord, causing the drapes to fall away.  Behind the glass sat an enormous contraption with three obvious seats and helmets, countless whirling parts, flashing lights, gears, levers, buttons, and wheels.

"I give you... Junction Machine Ellone!"


	9. Don't

Laguna sat behind his desk, fairly vibrating with rage.  Kiros and Ward flanked him, and Odine sat in a chair opposite them, an expression of serenity on his face, as if nothing could touch him.  Laguna wanted nothing more than to reach across the desk and wipe the smug look off the man's face.

"First off," Laguna said, "we are conducting this meeting in private, without the presence of Squall or Ellone, as a courtesy to you, Doctor.  I do not believe in taking my staff to task in the presence of others.  There is no need for them to see me reprimand you, as I assure you I will."

Odine sighed, already bored with the proceedings.  "It iz a great burden on the brilliant that we deal with people of limited intellect.  That you lack the proper perzpective iz not my problem."

Laguna slammed a fist on the table and started to rise from his seat.  Instantly, he felt the hands of Kiros and Ward on his shoulder, restraining him.  He lashed out with words instead.

"In the terms of your employment, you were specifically ordered to cease all research into the nature and function of Ellone's power including, but not limited to the manufacture of 'Junction Machine Ellone.'  That device will become a weapon used by the Sorceress Ultimecia in the future to strike at us, and I have prohibited you from developing that machine!"

Odine smacked his lips and rolled his eyes.  "That iz exactly why I am developing Junction Machine Ellone."

Laguna stared blankly.  He blinked several times.

"If I never build the Junction Machine," Odine said, "then Ultimecia can never utilize it to travel back in time.  If she never travels back in time, then I never know not to build it, meaning I do build it and she does travel back in time, meaning you do tell me not to build it.  That means I never build it, preventing her from traveling back in time, and zo on.  It iz an irrezolvable paradox.  One that could have grave conzequencez!  But, we know that she used if, therefore, we know I built it, therefore, I built it despite your order."

He sat back in his seat, satisfied.

Laguna slid forward in his seat, slowly.  Odine, a man accustomed to microscopes, had the distinct feeling of sitting underneath one.

"I am a forgiving man," he said, speaking more coolly than anyone had ever heard him speak.  "Some would say to a fault.  But my patience is not inexhaustible, and your I consider your actions beyond what I'm willing to tolerate.  I know what sort of atrocities you performed for Adel.  I read the reports.  Every one of them.  You kidnapped Ellone and traumatized her for life.  The only reason you're still a citizen of Esthar is because Kiros convinced me you have more use working for us than against us.

"And now I find that you violated my express order to cease your research into Ellone's power.  That you had good reason to do so may be one mitigating factor.  That we need your help is another.  However, when this is all over – when Squall completes his mission – you may prepare yourself for a total auditing of your laboratories, your financial accounts, your personal life, and anything else you can imagine.  If you have a bank account, I will find out how much is in it.  If you have a safety deposit box, I will open it personally.  If you have ever hidden a key under a rock, I will take the key and find the door to match it.

"I suggest you leave, now, and put yourself to work before I reconsider my very magnanimous position and have you removed from the country outright.  Are we clear?"

"You don't know who you're dealing with," Odine sputtered, jumping to his feet.

"You will leave my presence at once," Laguna said, his voice little more than a growl, "and get to work immediately on this project before I order Ward to snap you in half and use you for kindling.  Once Squall returns, we will renegotiate the terms of your employment, based precisely how industriously you work in the near future.  Are we clear?"

Odine obviously had more to say, but the loud sound of Ward cracking his knuckles made the doctor think twice about replying in the negative.

"I'll be in my lab," Odine said.

"Good," Laguna said.  Then, once the door had closed behind Odine's hastily retreating form, he added.  "I really don't like that guy."

"Well, boss," Kiros chimed in, "if he didn't know it before, he certainly does now."

Ward rumbled deep in his throat.

"That's for sure," Kiros said, adding, by way of explanation, "Ward shares your low opinion of the doctor."

"I just hope he doesn't try to sabotage the project," Laguna said, resting his chin on one hand.

"He wouldn't dare."

Ward sniffed the air a little and made a dainty face.

Kiros laughed so hard he had to hold his side.

"What?"  Laguna asked.  "What'd he say?"

"Ward thinks Odine wet himself on the way out of here."

*          *

Rinoa brushed away a stray strand of hair that kept falling in her face and kept reading.  The papers she'd brought back to Garden didn't contain anything exciting.  In the spirit of openness, Ambassador Shackelton wanted to throw a reception and dinner for diplomats from around the world.  Rinoa, accustomed to high-level, black-tie affairs, had volunteered to help plan.  Thus, she'd started carrying mountains of paperwork to help her correlate the minutiae that occupied her days and nights: which person didn't want to sit next to which person, who'd feel slighted if they sat too far down the table, and so on.

She closed her eyes for a moment and let the details fall away.  When she opened her eyes, she found herself looking at Squall, asleep – for the first time in days -- on the bed beside her.  Even as she watched, he turned again, fighting whatever battle ran through his mind.  His muscles convulsed, but he did not cry out – he wouldn't, she knew.  Squall had too much discipline for that, even in his sleep.

He could only fight against the nightmare for so long, though, until it overcame him.  When it did, he awoke with a gasp, sitting bolt upright, eyes wildly attempting to focus in the half-light of the lamp at Rinoa's nightstand.

"It's alright," she said, putting her hand on his shoulder.  "I'm here.  It was just a nightmare."

He half-turned to face her.  "I know what it was."

She sank.  "Squall, I know this has been awful for you.  Losing Balamb Garden.  But you can't shut me out of this."

Squall stood up and walked into the bathroom.  Rinoa heard the sound of water running as Squall washed his face.  The water stopped.  

"I don't want to talk about it.  This is my problem.  I don't want to get into it."

"Every night I watch you lay here next to me, staring at the ceiling, or the wall, or the floor.  You don't even bother pretending to sleep anymore.  You spend three days working yourself to the point of physical exhaustion and then you collapse on the bed, only to wake up a few hours later, still shaking from whatever nightmare keeps haunting you.  If you think this doesn't concern me Squall, you're wrong, because I worry about you."

Squall watched her from the doorway of the bathroom.  He came back into the bedroom and pulled open his dresser, pulling out a fresh pair of blue jeans, which he donned, and grabbed a t-shirt from the nearby closet .  He turned to Rinoa.

"We done?"  When she didn't answer, he continued.  "I'm going out."

Rinoa felt herself sink as the door closed behind him.  She sighed and turned her attention back to the papers still in her hands.  Squall would stay away -- in the training center or his office, or another secret hideout -- until she left for the embassy, at which point he'd return and prepare for his workday.  She wouldn't see him again until nightfall at the earliest.

*          *

A knock at the door prompted her to look up from the book she held.

"Who is it?" Selphie asked.

"Squall."

"C'mon in."

Squall entered the room to find Selphie curled up in the chair opposite the door.  She sat, wearing a navy blue baby doll nightie, with her legs folded underneath her.  She watched him cross the room and take a seat in one of the chairs along the wall.  

"What are you reading?" he inquired.

She flipped the book closed to look at the cover.  "Collection of short stories.  What's up with you?"

"Couldn't sleep," Squall answered.

"And you knew I'd be up?"

"I had a feeling."

Selphie half-smiled.  "That's a first."

Squall, restless, rose from his chair and moved over to Selphie's small refrigerator.  He looked to her for permission and she nodded.  He opened it and pulled out a bottle of water, and stood, drinking it, at the foot of her bed.

"How... have you been?" he asked.

"I haven't slept," she replied.  "Every time I close my eyes, I picture that train falling into the ocean.  I hear the voices of the junior cadets begging me to save them.  I... I promised them that they'd be safe."

"For me it's his voice," Squall said.  "His voice, laughing at me.  It follows me wherever I go.  Sometimes, when someone's talking, Mallis laughs so loud that it drowns out the other person's voice."

"What're we going to do about it, Squall?  I mean, about the dreams, and the laughter."

Squall frowned, staring into the depths of his water bottle.  He looked up at Selphie with deadly certainty in his eyes.  "We're going to kill him."

"Do you know when?  Have you decided yet?"

Squall put the water down and sat on the edge of Selphie's bed.

"I'm going away soon," he said.  "On a mission.  It has to do with Ellone's power and the idea Quistis proposed to us, so I'll be traveling back into the past.  To fight Mallis in Adel's time.  I don't know when I'll be leaving, since... preparations are still underway, but you can rest assured, once I'm there, I'll do everything in my power to kill him."

"But, if you kill him in the past..."

"I'm aware of that," Squall nodded, standing up and pacing the room as he talked, suddenly animated again.  "But don't you think that if I have a chance to put things right, I should seize it?  If I can kill him in the past, and prevent him from ever coming to Balamb Garden, shouldn't I jump at the opportunity?  Think of the loss of life it would prevent.  Think of the people he captured, sitting there as prisoners – that's assuming they're still alive.  We don't even know that.  No matter what the risks, I have to take this opportunity."

"Well," Selphie shrugged, "if our tussle with Ultimecia didn't break the time-space continuum, I guess bending it a little more can't hurt."

Squall stood and faced Selphie, digging in the pocket of his pants.  He fished out a jewelry case.

"I... got this for you," Squall said, holding it out in his hand.

"And you've just been carrying it around in your pants pocket?"

"I've had it stashed in my room," he explained.  "I grabbed it before I left."

"Weren't you a little concerned that Rinoa might find it?"

"I have a little more training in espionage and dead-drops than she does.  If I want to hide something from her, it stays hidden.  Besides," he shrugged, "worst-case scenario, she finds hidden jewelry – what's the most logical inference she's going to make?"

"True enough," Selphie replied.

"Here," Squall said, extending his hand again.  "Take it."

"Squall... I can't," she shook her head.

Squall crossed the room and set the case on the small table beside her.  He stood watching her, his face a mask, knowing that he'd already won.  She stared back at him ferociously until her curiosity got the better of her.  Finally, she took up the case and opened it.

"Squall, how much did this cost you?" she breathed.

"Who cares," he said, sullen.  "They pay me too much anyway."

"It's gorgeous."

So saying, she pulled it from its case: an amber stone of surpassing beauty suspended from a delicate gold chain.  The stone had a deep, rich color about it that seemed to swirl with the light.  As Selphie looked at it, she felt herself drawn into the depths of the ancient fossil.

"Put it on," Squall commanded.

Selphie stood up and walked to Squall.  She turned around, fitting the necklace to her throat, and allowed him to fasten the clasp.  When he had done so, the stone hung to the base of her throat and felt warm against her skin.

"Turn around," he said.

She pirouetted, slowly, while he watched.  As he looked at her, she glanced up at his searching eyes.

"Why did you buy this?" she asked.

"Because I wanted to see it on you."

His eyes continued to move over her -- the blue of her nightclothes to the amber of the stone, which brought out the hidden flecks of gold in her jade eyes.  He watched the stone rise and fall with the motion of her breath and felt a sense of satisfaction.

"You can only wear this for me," he said.  "This is ours.  This is our secret."

"Of course," she nodded, smiling softly.

Selphie stepped closer to Squall, took his hands in hers.  He felt acutely aware of the warmth of her body next to his, as she leaned in close to him.  She tilted her head up, and closed her eyes.

"No," he said.

Selphie opened her eyes and stepped back, maintaining her hold on Squall's hands.

"I'm sorry, Selphie," he continued.  "I... can't.  Once we start on this road – I mean, once we really start, there won't be any turning back.  And," he freed one of his hands to caress Selphie's face, "I'm not that strong."

Selphie nodded and smiled a little.  "Let it not be said that I was the woman responsible for leading Squall Leonhart into temptation."

Squall stepped back.  "I'm going to go now."

"To your office?"

"Yeah.  Work to be done."

"Will you come see me again?" Selphie asked.  "I mean, here?  Like this?"

"Count on it," Squall said from the door, pointing to her necklace.

And with that, he slid through the door and vanished into the night, leaving her alone again, with only the necklace and an empty bottle of water as the evidence of her visitor.


	10. Confrontation

All around him, it burned.  He could smell it on the wind.  An old soldier, he'd grown accustomed to the odors that followed battle.  Fire.  Blood.  Smoke.   Death.  And now they drifted across his senses again, closing in around him this time, pulling closer like the tightening of a noose.

He looked out over the city, the gleaming crystal of Esthar, and watched it burn.  Every part of the city blazed, caught up not with the internal light of a functioning metropolis, but the incendiary light of a city under siege.  The fires of revolution, a thousand individual emutes combining to threaten the country to which he'd dedicated his life.

A lesser man would see in those fires the end of his dreams, the undoing of a lifetime's work.  His single eye saw nothing before him but a night of bloodshed, of crushing rebellions beneath his heel, restoring the balance of order.

He could feel her in his head.  Not her presence, but her glaring absence.  For the first time in decades, he found himself deprived of her glory.  It pained him, yet drove him forward.  He burned inside to set things right, to reset the scales before returning her to the throne.

He turned on his heel and left the rooftop, reentering the palace he alone stood to defend, determined to prove how he, Justinian Varrant, had earned his position as the most feared and hated man in Esthar.

He strode through the building unopposed until, rounding a corner, he came across a ragged detachment of anti-Adel rebels.  The ragtag crew raised their weapons and fired on him.  He continued moving towards them, oblivious to the bullets darting around his head.

A corner of his mouth turned up in a snarl and he pulled back one hand, making a vicious clawing motion in the air in front of him.  At once, the soldiers collapsed, as if he had knocked their legs out from under them.  He grabbed at the air again, clutching a fist above his head and pulling sharply downward.  At once, the ceiling gave way, burying the opposing force beneath tons of marble.  Finally, he resumed his stride, moving down the hallway towards the rubble.  It parted obediently to allow him to pass, then reformed behind him.

He turned another corner and proceeded into a small foyer.  He had just started down the stairs when another group of soldiers burst into the room.  As their weapon fire struck the ground at his feet, he launched himself off the steps and down to the ground.  The force of his landing splintered the ground, sending shockwaves in all directions.

He turned his gaze to the soldier nearest him, who suddenly found himself floating in the air.  He raised his hand and closed it into a fist, watching as the soldier erupted into a dark purple flame.  Varrant gestured, and the soldier came crashing down into the midst of his companions, setting their bodies alight as well.

He continued past them, leaving the bodies to smolder in their magical fire.  No more detachments of soldiers came to confront him.  He entered the enormous great hall, looking up at the statue of Adel that dominated the room.  Seeing her image rekindled the blaze within him and he felt with certainty that all who opposed the reign of Adel would die that night.

He heard the sound of feet approaching and saw another detachment of rebels approaching the door to the palace.  With a casual wave of his hand, he sent Adel's statute crumbling to the ground, toppling over and barricading the door.

Through the smoke and rubble, he saw the face of Laguna Loire on the other side of the enormous door.  Loire pounded frantically, desperately trying to move the door, but to no avail.  

"Malice!"  Laguna screamed, the sound breaking above the chaos.

Varrant locked gazes with the man for a moment, then turned and ascended the stairs, leaving the hall and entering the throne room, the symbolic heart of Adel's kingdom.

He mounted the steps to the dais and took his place next to Adel's throne, where he had faithfully stood for countless years.  He closed his eye, and waited.

The rebels, he knew, would inevitably make their way here, to demolish Adel's throne as an emblem of the end of her reign.  To do so, they would have to go through him.  Loire, in his heroic naiveté, would come to perform the act himself.  After crushing Laguna, Varrant would proceed to demolish the rebel movement, one soul at a time if necessary.

The sound of an explosion rocked the palace.  Varrant nodded internally, knowing that they had breached the great hall.  The sound of a single man's footsteps drew near and the throne room door flew open.  Laguna walked in, alone.

Adel's Knight opened his eye as the door slammed shut behind Laguna.  The massive metal doors glowed white-hot for a moment and then started to melt, fusing together, and sealing the room.

Wordlessly, Laguna drew forth a gunblade, setting it in his hands for combat.  Varrant smiled and reached behind him, drawing forth his enormous sword, gripping it in one hand.

"Are you so eager to die?" he asked Laguna.

Varrant left the dais and stood before his opponent.  They watched each other coolly, and then Varrant lunged at Laguna, swinging the giant blade in a strike aimed to decapitate his foe.

*          *

"You're sure this is going to work?" Laguna asked as Odine placed the metal helmet over the President's head.

"Zere iz, naturally, an element of uncertainty involved.  Without the girl, Ellone, to power ze machine, I have been forced to conduct my work without any experimentation."

"You've... never tested this before?"  Laguna looked over at Squall, nervously.  The young man's face remained a mask, framed on either side by the metal of his own helmet.

"No," Odine shrugged.  "But the theory iz zound."  He adjusted the machine over at Laguna's side, and a faint humming filled the room.

Finally, he moved over to Ellone, fitting her helmet in place as well.  Squall and Laguna watched him closely, keenly aware of the glint in the scientist's eye.

"We are ready."  He walked to the control panel and started pressing buttons.  The humming grew louder.  His right arm darted out and pulled an enormous level.

Suddenly, Squall felt himself start to pass out, a throbbing blue light pulsating behind his eyes.  His stomach dropped out beneath him as waves of vertigo overcame his senses.  Odine shuffled back to Ellone's side.

"You may begin," he said.  She closed her eyes, and a look of calm passed over her face as she invoked her power.

The blue light pressed ever harder against Squall as he felt his world slip away.  Blue faded into brilliant white, and then, nothing.

*          *

Blinding white light engulfed him as he felt himself stumble.  Momentum carried him forward as he tumbled to the ground.  The white threatened to encompass him until he heard a voice calling him back.

"Laguna?  Hey, Laguna, you okay?"

_What?  Where am I? he thought.  He blinked repeatedly, and the universe came into focus again.  He gazed upwards at a dizzying array of stars, burning brightly in their places.  The night sky had never seemed so clear or beautiful before, and he found himself awed at the sheer immensity of the spectacle before him.  It left him breathless._

Suddenly, Kiros came into his field of vision, looking at him from upside down.

"Laguna, we don't have time for stargazing.  Are you okay?"

"Yeah," he said, staggering to his feet.  "I don't know what came over me."

_I'm here, Squall thought.  _It worked.__

"You're not getting one of your leg cramps, are you?" Kiros asked.

"No," Laguna rubbed the back of his head, still disoriented from the fall.  "I just... got a little excited."

_We don't have time for this!  Squall screamed internally.___

"I'm fine.  Let's move out!" Laguna exclaimed, raising his machine gun enthusiastically over his head.

Laguna's body started running again as Squall focused on the scene around him.  They ran through the streets of Esthar, Laguna leading a small group of fighters, Kiros and Ward among them.  Up ahead, Squall could see the building he knew as the presidential palace.

The doors stood unguarded.  The group approached just in time to see Varrant pass by them.

"You secure the palace," Squall shouted, seizing control of Laguna's body. "I'm going after the target."

Mallis gestured contemptuously, and the lobby's massive statue of Adel toppled over, slamming brutally against the doors.

Squall pulled with all his might, trying to pry the doors open by sheer force of will, but they refused to budge.  As he struggled, he thought he saw a smile on Mallis' face, and it made him more frantic.  The General started to turn away.

"Mallis!" Squall screamed, pounding in desperation, using Varrant's alias in the confusion.

Mallis turned back, watching for a moment, and then left, climbing the stairs and vanishing from view.

"Damn it!" he swore, still trying to pull the doors apart.

"It's okay, chief," one of the soldiers said.  "We've got explosives, remember?"

Squall whirled and seized the explosives from the soldier, making Laguna's hands move rapidly to set the charges.

"Laguna, do you know what you're doing?" Kiros asked.

"Sure," Laguna said, reasserting control over his voice while Squall focused on the placing the explosives at the key points of the door.  "It's pretty self-explanatory."

The charges set, the group retreated to a safe distance.  They all crouched down low to shield themselves from the blast.

"Here we go," said the engineer.

Laguna's body leapt up.  "My gun!  I left my gun at the door!" he yelled.

Kiros grabbed Laguna and forced him to the ground at the last moment, the doors detonating violently and flying off the hinges.  The group rose.

"My gun just got blown up," Laguna said, looking at the wreckage of the door.

"Give me that gunblade," Squall snapped, turning to another soldier and seizing control again.

They approached the palace at a run, Squall scrambling over the rubble of Adel's statue and entering the great hall.

_Have to do this alone, he thought._

"I'm going after Varrant," Squall said.  "The rest of you, secure the palace."

Kiros and Ward stepped up.

"You sure you want to do this alone?" Kiros asked.

"Go," Squall replied.  "It's an order."

They broke off and followed the rest of the group.  Squall hurtled up the steps in pursuit of his quarry.  At the end of the long hallway, he saw the throne room, and beside the throne, a figure that could only be the man he knew as Yvaine Mallis.

He entered the room, and the doors slammed shut behind him as Mallis opened his eye.  Squall drew forth the gunblade and held himself in readiness, waiting for his foe to make the first move.

Mallis, with an almost gentle grace, reached over his shoulder and drew forth an enormous sword, the blade fully as tall as a man.  Despite its size, he held it easily, as he would a toy.

"Are you so eager to die?" he asked, stepping off the dais and approaching Squall.

Squall looked into that insane eye, the one that had haunted his dreams, waiting for the first sign of attack.

In a blur of motion, Mallis' right hand swung forward, the blade leaping at Squall's head.  Squall threw himself to the side, lashing out with his gunblade.  As if he wielded nothing heavier than a rapier, Mallis' sword flicked over, nimbly deflecting the thrust.

Squall pressed forward, his gunblade striking at Mallis' outstretched arm, attempting to sever it.  Mallis' arm snaked out of the way and came down in an overhead slash.  Squall rolled out of the way, coming to a crouch as Mallis' sword, carried down by the awesome force of his arm, smashed into the ground, cleaving the marble as it struck.

"You're doing well," he growled, wrenching the blade free.  "Not many have survived this long against me."

Mallis waved one hand and a massive chunk of marble pried itself up from the floor.  It hovered next to him for a second, and then launched itself at Squall, whistling as it hurtled through the air at him.  Squall stood his ground.

As the boulder neared, he brought his gunblade down with both hands, pulling the trigger as the blade struck the enormous rock.  The stone exploded, fragmenting in half, the two sides flying safely past Laguna's body.  

"Less talk," Squall said.  "Die now."

He ran at Mallis, powerful legs kicking off the ground as he approached.  From his standing position, Mallis leapt as well, propelling himself at Squall.  They met in the air, blades connecting high, then low.  Both men landed unharmed.

Mallis came forward, swinging his blade in a wide arc, under which Squall ducked, rolling past him.  The force of Mallis' blow kept his blade moving onward, where it bit into one of the massive freestanding pillars supporting the room.  His blade caught again and Mallis struggled to free it, reflexively.  

Squall charged again, as Mallis clenched one fist in rage, purple fire blazing around his hand.  He pounded his fist into the column, and it crumbled, as Mallis pulled his sword free and leapt away from the collapsing pillar.  Mallis regained control of his blade just in time, and it danced as if of its own accord to block Squall's gunblade.

Mallis' long leg lashed out, striking Squall in the chest, sending him sprawling next to a pillar.  Mallis shifted his grip, taking the massive sword in both hands and sliced at the column, cutting it clean through.  It collapsed, and Squall darted out of the way just in time, the tower of marble falling directly down on where he had landed.

Smiling grimly, Mallis turned, moving to the column nearest him.  He extended his arms back for the next strike when Squall dashed in to attack again.  Mallis altered his strike in time, deflecting Squall's stroke.  He held the blade one-handed again, his left hand reaching out and gripping Squall around the throat.  He squeezed, lifting Laguna's body off the ground.

Both swords clattered to the ground as Squall dropped his gunblade and attempted to pry Mallis' hand from off his throat, but to no use.  Mallis pulled him close, breathing directly in Squall's face.  One fist came up, and Squall could see the flame surrounding it again.

"I will kill you if I have to tear down Heaven itself," Mallis snarled, slamming his free hand into the pillar.  It splintered and started to tumble.  As Mallis struck, Squall stopped trying to free his throat, and raised both hands to Mallis' head, gripping it tightly.  With all the strength left in his hands, Squall pressed his thumbs into Mallis' good eye, pushing as hard as he could.

Mallis screamed and dropped Squall.  "My eye!" he howled, staggering away from the dissolving column.  Squall snatched up his gunblade and retreated several steps, watching as tons of marble buried Mallis' sword.

Mallis looked up again, blood streaming from his eye.  He felt the cold steel of Squall's gunblade pressing against his throat.

"Do it," Mallis said.  "Do you really have the stomach to kill me in cold blood?"

Wordlessly, Squall chambered a round in the gunblade, the click resounding through the room. The blue light suddenly appeared in Squall's head, and he fought to retain control, to stay in this world only for the few moments more it would take to kill Mallis.

Suddenly, the doors erupted inward in a massive explosion that sent Squall and Mallis sprawling.  Kiros and Ward stormed into the room.

"Laguna!" Kiros exclaimed, seeing his friend prostrate on the floor.

_No!  Damn it!  Squall screamed inwardly, fighting his way to his feet.  Every second, the blue light grew stronger, and Squall could feel his hold on Laguna slipping away._

"Where is he?" Squall shouted, casting around with his gunblade for Mallis.

Kiros pointed and Squall whirled to see Mallis escaping into an opening in the wall, one that hadn't previously existed.

"Until we meet again," the General hissed, the secret door sliding shut before him.

"No!  He's getting away!"  Squall staggered to the wall, searching for something, anything, that would reopen Mallis' escape route.  But the blue light overcame him, and he collapsed to his knees as he felt Laguna's personality reasserting control.

Everything faded to blue, then white.

*          *

"Squall?  Squall?"  Ellone's voice calling him.  The cool, regulated environment of Odine's lab flooded into his lungs, replacing the smoke of war-torn Esthar.  He opened his eyes to find Laguna and Ellone standing over him.  Ellone held his hand.

"You're back," Laguna said.  "We were getting worried about you."

"I... I failed."  Squall murmured.

"What are you talking about?"  Laguna asked.  "Everything's still in place.  You beat back Varrant.  History is maintained."

"I... I failed to kill him.  To end it."

And then his world faded away again, but this time to a calm, restful black, the sweet relief of unconsciousness passing over him in a wave.


	11. Deliver Me

"I have reviewed all the available evidence," Laguna said, watching Odine from across the desk, "and made my decision."  The diminutive doctor squirmed uncomfortably.

"You have conducted research against my specific orders, not only on Junction Machine Ellone, but on countless other forbidden projects.  Your own records indicate that you have not only continued to conduct human research, but that you kidnapped people to serve as unwilling test subjects.

"You have misappropriated the funds I continued to send you by misrepresenting your budgetary needs and then siphoning off the extra for your own personal luxury.

"You have arranged for the disappearance of your research assistants when it suits your needs.  Sometimes, because their findings have contradicted your own, sometimes, because you wish to claim credit for their work or eliminate a possible competitor.  You have silenced anyone who sought to reveal the truth about your illegal activities."

"You have no..." Odine interrupted.

"Be quiet!" Laguna exclaimed, the harsh tone in his voice silencing the small man.  "I have more than enough evidence to see you executed for your crimes!"   He took a breath, resuming a more even tenor.

"All the evidence leads me to one conclusion, Doctor: that your research practices now are no different than they were under Adel.  As such, you must be punished.  While I would like to see you hanged for your crimes, I am aware that you have rendered significant services to our country during my tenure.  You helped seal away Adel.  You worked to save Rinoa.  You rescued Seifer from Time Compression.  And just recently, you aided us in preserving history.

"In light of these efforts, I am allowing you to decide your own fate."

Laguna reached into the breast pocket of his jacket and produced a small envelope.  He placed it on the desk, and slid it over to Odine, who took it.  Inside, the doctor saw a train ticket.

"That is a one-way ticket to Fisherman's Horizon.  It departs in one hour.  Where you go from there is up to you.  As of this moment, I have seized your lab, your home, and all your assets.  You may leave the country with the clothes on your back and whatever money you have in your wallet.  Once that train departs, if you remain in the country, you will be arrested and tried for war crimes, treason, kidnapping, murder, embezzlement, and anything else I feel like adding to the indictment.  If you ever re-enter the country, have any contact with any citizens of Esthar, or take action against my country, you may expect the same."

:Laguna stood up and crossed to the door, opening it.  He stood there and addressed Odine again.

"Kiros and Ward are waiting outside, with a squadron of my troops to escort you to the train station.  I suggest you take advantage of my generous offer and, before you think to question whether or not I have the courage to follow through on my threat, ask yourself if I'm a man who makes threats lightly."  Laguna paused, and then looked at Odine with a cold gaze that chilled the scientist.

"Would I still be President if I were?"

Fuming inside, Odine rose, clutching the ticket tightly in his fist.  He moved past Laguna without speaking, and into the anteroom of the presidential office.  As he walked, Kiros and Ward flanked him, followed close behind by a small group of soldiers.

"Escort him to the train," Laguna called from the door.  "And if he tries anything, shoot him."

*          *

Back at Esthar Garden, the high-ranking SeeDs comprising the First Team gathered in the infirmary.  From behind the glass, they observed Squall, lying silently in his hospital bed, unmoving.  Rinoa sat next to him, holding his hand.

"So what's the diagnosis?" Seifer asked.

"He's in a coma," Quistis answered, "induced by the stress of traveling to the past and unforeseen side effects from the Junction Machine."  

"Will... will he be okay?"  Selphie this time, looking through the glass, one hand pressed up against it.

"He's fully expected to come out of it.  It's just a question of when.  All he needs is time to recover."

"It's time we don't have," Irvine supplied.  "Every day that we're not taking action is another day Mallis entrenches himself deeper at Balamb Garden."

"Yeah," Zell added.  "We don't know what he's doing to the captives, but we shouldn't be giving him more time in which to do it."

At this statement, Seifer scowled, clenching his jaw.  Zell saw this and placed an arm around Seifer's waist, knowing that the taller man's thoughts had turned to Fujin.

Quistis nodded, watching Squall and Rinoa.  It occurred to her that fortunes had reversed, and it seemed like just a short while ago when she watched Squall caring for an unconscious Rinoa.

"So what do we do?"  Seifer said.  "Do we just wait for Squall to snap out of it?"

"No," Quistis said.  "We carry on in Squall's absence.  We relieve him of his command and appoint an interim commander."

"Yeah, but who's going to take charge?" Zell queried.

"I am," Quistis shot back.  All eyes turned to her.  "I'm the highest-ranked SeeD next to Squall, and the best-informed as to the workings of this Garden.  If Squall disagrees with my decision, he can reprimand me when he wakes up.  Right now, we need a leader and decisive action, not a comatose commander.  I trust no one objects."

She looked over her assembled friends, and no one spoke back.  Quistis pressed her way into Squall's room, causing Rinoa to stand.

"Don't get up," the blonde said.  She crossed over to Squall and reached down to his neck, fishing around beneath the hospital gown.  In short order, she found the object of her search and pulled it free.

Leaving the room, Quistis returned to the waiting area, facing her friends.  She opened her palm to reveal Squall's Griever pendant, which she hung over her neck.  The pendant shone against the dark fabric of her uniform.

"I have command," she said.  "I'll be working out of Squall's office from here on out.  It's now 1300 hours.  I'd like to see everyone for a briefing and status report in the conference room at 1600 to bring me up to speed."

She looked over the room again, then back to Squall.

"That's it, everyone," she nodded.  "Dismissed."

She turned on her heel and strode out of the infirmary, heading for Squall's office to start her work.  No one else left, continuing to watch through the glass.

*          *

Odine sat on the train, glowering out the window.  He seethed with contempt, mind reeling with the indignity of his situation.  He, the great Odine, had turned into a man without a country, an exile, a common criminal.

Laguna had stolen everything for which Odine had ever worked.  His years of research, his lab, all taken from him.  He no longer had a home, let alone a place to conduct his experiments.  All because of Loire's petty jealousy, his inability to accept Odine's brilliance.

Odine looked down at the napkin in his hand, on which he'd started scribbling the plans for a death ray, one that could obliterate Laguna's palace from the other side of the globe.  He imagined the glee of firing it, of seeing a beam of light pierce the atmosphere, and then, nothing.  Silence falling over the presidential palace as every living creature inside fell dead.

Scowling, he scratched out the plans.  Such a device would require an incomprehensible amount of power, far beyond anything even the most advanced technologies could produce.  He tore the napkin to shreds, cursing.

"I'll make him pay," he muttered.  "Zomehow, I'll make him pay."

He stared out the window, watching the lights of the tunnel streak past.  In the back of his mind, a plan started to form.  The flames of vengeance burned more brightly within him, and Odine knew how to strike back at the man who'd wronged him: by offering his services to the one man who hated Laguna Loire more than he did.

The train emerged from the tunnel and into the daylight.  Odine disembarked and made his way up into the station, emerging into the harsh light of day.  He shuffled through the sleepy town, so different from his native country, until he came to its car rental service.  Looking at the money in his wallet, he found that he had just enough remaining to hire a car to his next destination.  He approached a car.

"Where ya going?" the driver asked.

"Garden," Odine said, eyes gleaming as he contemplated his revenge.  "Balamb Garden."

*          *

Quistis paced the length of Squall's office, file folder in hand.  She'd spent the last hour reading through all the available documents on SeeD's outstanding contracts and making mental notes on which warriors to assign to the trouble spots.  Fortunately, Squall kept his office rigorously organized, so she could find any information she needed with a minimum of searching.  She walked back to the desk and sat down, placing the folder in hand on top of one of the piles she'd made, sorting the contracts in order of priority.

The door to the office opened and Selphie stepped inside, looking grave.  She stopped just inside the door and took in the entire office, as though searching for something.

"Something the matter?" Quistis asked.

"It's just so... different."  She paused, looking at her friend, seated in Squall's chair.  "To see someone else at Squall's desk, I mean."

"I know," Quistis replied.  "He spends so much time here you just expect to see him.  I keep waiting to hear his footsteps on the stairs, coming back from one of the other floors."  She smiled wistfully.  "It hasn't happened yet, though."

Selphie moved across the room and sat in one of the chairs opposite Squall's desk.

"Is there something I can do for you, Sel?"

"Yeah," she nodded.  "I want to fill you in on something Squall had me look into."

Quistis looked up from the papers in front of her.  "We'll cover that at the briefing.  Just make sure you include it in your report, and we'll talk about it then."

"No," Selphie shook her head.  "This was an off-the-record assignment.  There's nothing about it on the Network.  I have the only records of it, and I'm keeping them somewhere... safe.  It's best if we talk about this in private."

"Fair enough," Quistis said, closing the file and folding her hands on the desk.  "What's up?"

"The day you proposed your plan to Squall, he got a report from Avatar that both of us thought was a little suspicious, and he asked me to send a team – unofficially – to investigate."

"Okay..."

"It concerned Videlic Arms, a weapons manufacturer out of Galbadia."

"I'm familiar with them," Quistis nodded.  "They do a lot of work with developing new technologies with military applications.  They're the ones who installed the weapons systems on the _Ragnarok _and her sister ships, back when they were the flagships of Esthar."

"Right.  Well, almost immediately following the capture of Balamb Garden, Videlic cancelled all their current projects – some of them at great expense – and started work on something new.  They claimed it was for an important client who was going to pay through the nose for this new weapon, but no records exist as to the client's identity.  What's more, there aren't any records of any kind of payment."

"I see where you're going with this," Quistis said, "but so far, this mystery client could still be a government trying to avoid scrutiny."

"Well, there's also the fact that they've been shuttling scientists, engineers, and technicians back and forth to Balamb Garden.  This has been fairly constant since Mallis took over.  And they've been producing next to nothing in their factories, until an order comes down for a single part.  It gets manufactured, then sent to Garden under cover of darkness and strictest security."

"That's certainly more convincing.  Do we know what they're working on?"

"So far, we have only a project name: WarMech."

*          *

Mallis crossed Balamb Garden's main concourse, savoring the quiet, the perfect order he'd imposed on the place.  Not so very long ago, the main concourse buzzed and hummed with the constant activity of Garden's operation: students chatting on the way to class, SeeDs swapping stories about their latest missions, junior cadets playing cards...  Now, silence.  Nothing remained to disturb his thoughts, nothing penetrated the silence save the rushing of water and the footsteps of his soldiers patrolling the hallway.  He'd burned away the chaos and left only order and discipline.

As he moved from the library to the elevator, his ears, long attuned to the sounds of conflict, perked up, catching the sounds of a disturbance at the front gate.  He altered his course to investigate.

"...and I have to zee him!" exclaimed a person, arguing with the sentries Mallis had posted.

Its accent unmistakable, Mallis recognized the voice at once: Odine.  The man who betrayed Queen and country for profit.  The lowliest vermin to ever slither its way out of the pit.  Interest piqued, he strode rapidly towards the gate.

"What seems to be the problem?" he asked, materializing behind his soldiers.

"It's Odine," said one, pointing to the Doctor, who knelt before them, a rifle aimed at his skull.

"I can see that," he responded.  "But that's not what I asked.  Again: what seems to be the problem?"

"He's demanding an audience with you, General.  He claims to have information you want."

"Doubtful," Mallis sneered.  "Seize him.  Take him to the detention center, to be executed at my leisure."

"What?  Wait!" Odine screamed, as Mallis' troops hauled him away.  "Mozt Dread Knight, I need to talk to you!"

*          *

"...and zo Junction Machine Ellone had an unanticipated zide effect, for which Laguna exiled me.  Zo I am here, at your mercy, Excellency..."

Mallis nodded, watching the doctor, who sat opposite him in Squall's former office.

"...and I can help you deztroy Laguna.  All my knowledge, all my brilliance, everything I have, everything I am, I place at your feet..."

Mallis closed his eye, listening to the small man pleading for his life.

"...I will tell you everything I know about Laguna, about the boy Leonhart, about the new Garden, anything you want..."

"Enough," Mallis' eye snapped open.  "I have long wished to bring you to justice.  To repay you in kind for your treason against the Great Queen.  The only suitable punishment is death.  And yet..."  Mallis' voice trailed off, and his eye closed.  He cocked his head slightly, listening for something.

"And yet," the burning eye reopened, focusing on Odine once more.  "My lady bids me to spare your life.  She believes that you may yet redeem yourself."

More than the death sentence Mallis pronounced, this caused Odine great discomfort.  He'd seen Adel's corpse in person, watched as a team under his direction encased the body in a cement cube ten feet thick.  How, then, could the General still receive orders from her?

"Your Junction Machine," Mallis continued, thoughtful, "it is used to transfer the consciousness of one person into the body of another person at a different point in time?"

"That iz correct."

"And, presumably, there is a retrieval program, whereby you reclaim the traveler's consciousness, to drag it from this other time, back to the present?"

Odine nodded again.

Mallis leaned forward.  "Could it then be used to seize the mind of someone in the past, and bring it into the present, forcing it upon a host body?"

Odine's mind whirled, rapidly reconfiguring the machine in his head.

"Well... az it currently operatez, no.  But with minor work, it could be done."

"Would it require the girl Ellone?"

"No.  I have gathered enough data to make her redundant."

"Pity," Mallis said.  "But no matter – this is why the Great Queen had me spare your life.  You will begin work on a new Junction Machine at once."

"But..." Odine spread his hands.  "But I have no laboratory, no materialz, nothing!"

"You will be given all that," Mallis nodded.  "You will have to reconstruct the machine from memory, but I have... faith... in you.  You will make your way to Galbadia, to a company by the name of Videlic Arms, which is already working on a special project for me.  They will expect you, and will accommodate you in whatever manner is necessary.  You may go now."

Odine rose and hurried to the door of the room.

"Doctor?" called Mallis from the desk.

"Yez?"

"I trust I don't have to remind you of the penalty for failure."

Odine swallowed again and left the room, fairly running through the halls.

*          *

Every day the blue coat men come.

Sometimes they stare at him, talking in whisper-voices, but he hears.  He hears everything now.

Sometimes they enter his cell, and then darkness, but when the bugs wake him up again, he feels... stronger.  More perfect than before.

Sometimes they show him images, flickering thought-fast on the screen.  Sometimes, they don't use the screen, and the images assault his brain, so strong that he can't tell their thoughts from his thoughts.

A child cries, watching his mother crushed underneath the wreckage of a collapsed church.

A building explodes, rubble spewing everywhere.

A long-dormant volcano erupts, laving streaming down its side, engulfing the small town nestled in the valley below.

People scream.  Feet march in unison.

Someone yells again and again and again.

Kill.  Kill.  _Kill._


	12. Now for the Pirate's Lair

She watched him, lying there, looking more peaceful than she'd seen him since the fall of Balamb Garden.  The stress of running the new Garden, as well as fighting his own personal demons had taken its toll on Squall, but now he looked calm and at rest.

Her eyes traced the long scar running down his face, and her mind wandered back to that morning a lifetime ago when he'd acquired it.

*          *

Quistis sat in her office, reviewing her files.  A small detachment from the Galbadian army had invaded Dollet, providing the perfect opportunity to administer the field exam to the new crop of SeeD candidates.  She'd selected five students from her homeroom to take the exam, including Squall, Seifer, and the new transfer student, Selphie Tilmitt, who she hadn't met yet.

Squall, she noted, had yet to visit the Fire Cavern, a prerequisite for taking the field exam, and she made a note to mention it to him after class.  She looked forward to the chance to get some time alone with him without having to invent a reason.

The phone on her desk rang.  Reflexively, she reached out and answered it.  

"Quistis Trepe," she said.

"Quistis?" the voice came from Dr. Kadowaki.  "Come get your student."

"Let me guess," Quistis replied, tapping a fingernail against her teeth.  "Seifer and Squall hurt each other during their training?"

"Yes, yes..."  Kadowaki answered.

Quistis winced.  "Is it bad?"

"His injury's not serious.  It'll probably leave a scar."

"You know, Dr. Kadowaki, if not for you, those two would have killed each other long ago."

The doctor gave a short laugh, and Quistis could hear the woman rolling her eyes.  "...Right.  Now please come by."

"On my way."

Quistis hung up the phone, realizing she still didn't know which student she needed to retrieve.  She dug around in her desk drawer and produced a coin.

"Heads, it's Seifer, tails, it's Squall," she said, flipping the small disk in the air.  She snatched it on the descent and turned it over.  "Tails," she declared.  "Good for me, bad for Squall."  Quistis pursed her lips, adding a notation to the disciplinary report in her mind.  "Worse for Seifer."

She moved quickly through the hallways and to the infirmary.  Dr. Kadowaki greeted her outside the door.

"He's inside," she explained.

"Thanks, doctor," Quistis answered, straightening her uniform jacket and heading through the sliding door.

It hissed shut behind her, and her eyes did a quick search of the room, settling on Squall, who wore a large bandage over his perfect face.  She closed her eyes and sighed, deeply.

*          *

"That day was the start of everything," Quistis said, her mind drifting back to the present, to the comatose Squall in front of her.  "You and Rinoa, Cid taking away my Instructor's license...  Everything."

She rose, circling slowly to the window.  "And here we are again, in an infirmary once more."  She folded her arms as she looked outside, at the vast, nearly featureless plains of Esthar.  The barren, cracked land stopped short of the Garden, which existed as a fertile paradise wholly separate from the largely non-arable land around it.

"I seem to recall a similar situation not long after.  A restless young man watching over a beautiful girl as she languished from an unknown curse.  Sound familiar?" she asked, turning to Squall.  She closed the distance, standing over him, looking down at the lion thus laid low.

"I remember the look of concern on your face.  I could see how much you were suffering, and there was nothing I could do about it.  There was nothing any of us could do, but I felt it more than anyone.  I wanted to make you happy, to make you smile, but," she shook her head sadly, "I just couldn't do it."

Quistis took a cloth from the table and dabbed at Squall's forehead, mopping the cold perspiration that bespangled his brow.

She half-smiled, remembering.  "We were all so proud of you when you took Rinoa to Esthar by yourself.  Even I was cheering you on."  A pause, then, her voice catching in her throat, "And I want you to know that any one of us would do the same thing for you.  We'd walk the width and breadth of the planet if it would bring you back."

She sank back in her chair, closing her eyes.  Squall's pendant felt cool against her skin.  Time passed, and Quistis awoke to the sound of the door opening.  Seifer entered, a leather-bound book under his left arm.  He raised his right arm in a lackadaisical half-salute.

"Reporting for Squall-watch," he said.

"Good thing, too," she replied.  "Things were starting to get maudlin."

"Don't worry.  Squall and I will macho the place back up."

"I have no doubt of it," she smiled.

"So... have you heard anything new from the medical team?" Seifer asked.

"They think he's doing pretty well.  His brain is functioning normally, and they can't find any difference between... whatever state he's in and normal sleep, so all we can do is let him rest and lend him our strength."

Seifer snorted.  "I'm sick of waiting.  All we've done since Balamb Garden is wait.  Wait for a chance to strike at Mallis, wait for Squall to travel into the past, wait for him to recover...  I'm getting fed up."

Quistis shrugged, heading for the door.  "Well, I'm off to the office.  Maybe I'll turn up an assignment that will let you raise a little mayhem."

He smiled.  "Finally!  A plan I can agree with!"

"It's funny... " she said, pausing at the door.

"Hm?" Seifer turned to face her.

She fidgeted a little.  "I always had these little... you know... domestic scenes that would play out in my head.  Where Squall and I were a couple, right?  And I always envisioned myself watching him sleep, or taking care of him when he was sick."

"Not what you had in mind?" Seifer asked.

"No," she replied.  "Not at all."

She stepped fully into the hallway and the door slid shut behind her.  She moved through the infirmary in a trance, her mind pushing aside ruminations on the past and focusing instead on the grim future.

Justinian Varrant, also called Yvaine Mallis.  Knight to the Sorceress Adel and Captain of Adel's Royal Guard.  Garden Master of Balamb Garden.  Warrior.  Manipulator.  Murderer.  Genius and madman.

Mallis had the capability to assuage Cid's paranoia to the extent that the Headmaster hired him to help run Balamb Garden.  He managed to cast his net around Garden without Cid suspecting anything, and without running afoul of Cid's own machinations.  He possessed untold resources -- including his own private army and an airship thought lost in the deep reaches of space, and the logistical wherewithal to field them both.  He improved the quality of life for everyone at Garden, yet coldly butchered a trainload of junior cadets.  According to Laguna, his martial abilities had no equal, and his magical prowess rivaled that of many Sorceresses.

Quistis passed through the concourse, still ruminating on the nature of her foe.  A small cluster of cadets waved to her and she dimly remembered to wave back.  Dawn started to break over Esthar Garden.

Mallis seemed invincible.  He studied Balamb Garden carefully before launching his attack.  He knew its strengths and its weaknesses, and planned his attack with unerring precision.  While SeeD regrouped and licked its wounds in Esthar, he had time to dig himself in deeper, putting all of his considerable wealth and knowledge into securing the site.

She pressed the call button for the elevator and crossed her arms over her chest as she thought.  Someone pressed a piece of paper at her and she signed without reading it.

A standard invasion seemed like a recipe for failure.  Not that it couldn't work, of course – Seifer and Mallis had both proven the effectiveness of the direct approach during their respective assaults.  However, SeeD tended to maintain a focus on small, commando-style actions, as opposed to full-scale invasions.  Consequently, most of the organization's logistical support revolved around delivering small groups of individuals to the site of a battle, rather than massive troop deployments.  And Mallis had captured most of the vehicles SeeD would use to support such an action anyway.

The elevator doors opened in front of her and she boarded, pressing the button for Squall's office.

A siege, then?  Impossible.  Before their conversion to military academies, the Gardens – Esthar excepted, of course – existed as shelters constructed by the people of the Centra continent.  Each building could withstand a protracted siege almost indefinitely and, worse, could go mobile on command.  Starving out a fortress by siege means precious little when that fortress can pack up and go somewhere else.

A small strike might prove equally dangerous.  In the time since the fall of Garden, Mallis could have made any number of modifications to the building's security.  Such an attack would proceed with only intelligence on Garden prior to its invasion.  In the intervening span, Mallis might have even sealed off passages, shifting the building's fundamental layout.

Quistis stepped off the elevator and moved through the office, hands clasped behind her back.  She climbed the stairs to the office's top level, and then stretched out on Squall's couch, closing her eyes as she thought.

The captives presented an entirely different set of challenges.  Mallis could have killed them by this point, or could have transferred them to a location where he might kill them in case of an emergency.  Rescuing the captives and putting them immediately to work against Mallis seemed like a good option, assuming anyone remained in fighting condition after their imprisonment.

Mallis' motives remained a cipher to her.  Based on his comment, "sins of the father," she could infer that he intended to strike at Laguna by harming Squall.  Further evidence to support that theory came from The Storm's concerted effort to capture Squall right before he boarded the _Ragnarok._  

But they'd tried to capture Rinoa, too.  Why?  What purpose could that serve?  Torture Squall by harming Rinoa?  That made little sense if Mallis had focused himself on making Laguna suffer.

And how did the capture of Balamb Garden fit in with the goal of harming Laguna?  Had Mallis not anticipated the possibility that Squall might escape?  He'd crafted the rest of his plan with such precision that Quistis found such an oversight implausible.

Quistis picked up the remote control nearby and pressed a button.  Soft music filtered from the stereo, the lilting voice of a soprano blending with a gentle piano.  

Squall...  Rinoa... Laguna... Balamb Garden...  The pieces danced in front of her, swirling and mysterious.  Some link existed, some common thread tying them all together, and when she found it, Mallis' goal would make itself known to her.

The sound of feet ascending the stairs pulled Quistis from her reverie.  She opened her eyes to see Selphie standing over her, a folder under her arm, and a deeply perturbed look on her face.

"What's up, Selphie?" Quistis asked, sitting up.

"Trouble.  I just got a disturbing transmission from one of the deep-cover agents I sent over to Videlic Arms."  Selphie pulled one of the wheeled chairs close to the couch and sat facing Quistis.

"The company working for Mallis.  You have more on the WarMech project?"

Selphie's face remained a mask.  "Take a look at this."

She handed the folder to Quistis, who opened it.  Inside, she saw a series of black-and-white pictures, taken from the security cameras at the arms manufacturer's research facility.  She flipped through them, rapidly, noting the time stamp on each photograph.  The locations of each shot varied, showing various hallways and research labs, but all with a common theme: Odine.  The doctor appeared in every picture, on his way to meetings or conducting his research.

Quistis closed the folder and placed it on the couch next to her.  Removing her glasses, she pinched the bridge of her nose with the fingers of one hand and closed her eyes again, trying to incorporate this new detail into her understanding of Mallis.

Finally, Selphie spoke.  "So what do we do?"

Quistis looked up.  "Have your agents been able to figure out what he's working on?"

"Not at all.  The company's security is intense.  We barely managed to get a team inside in the first place, and producing this data was nothing short of miraculous.  Whatever Odine is working on, it's very, very secret."

Quistis looked at Selphie for a long moment, then nodded.  "Scramble the First Team, prep the _Ragnarok, and have everyone in the situation room in fifteen minutes."_

*          *

Fifteen minutes later, the First Team – minus Squall -- assembled around the massive conference table in the situation room.  Quistis started the meeting seated at the head of the table, in Squall's traditional chair, but, feeling discomforted at his absence, quickly stood up to pace the room.

"This is Videlic Arms," she began, pressing a button on the remote control to activate the video display.  It showed up an image of the company's main building, a short, three-story concrete edifice with no windows.  It resembled nothing so much as a bunker.  "A medium-sized weapons manufacturer located on the border between Galbadia and Timber.  They're known more for producing new technologies than for the amount of weapons they manufacture."

"They developed the metal alloy used in making Bismarck-model rifles.  Their company is the reason those guns are so lightweight," Irvine added.

Quistis nodded.  "Shortly before Squall went into the past, Avatar reported some anomalous behavior from the company?"

"Anomalous?" Seifer asked.  "Anomalous how?"

"They've shut down their factories across the board.  Cancelled all their current projects.  Dedicated the entire company to completing a major order for a key client.  The anomaly is the fact that there is no visible client. They've received no payments, and there's nothing on the books to indicate the nature of this order.  As far as we can tell, they're working for free.

"We know nothing about the project itself, beyond the fact that it's named WarMech.  What concerns us is the fact that their factories sit idle until a new part is ready to be built.  They build the part and then ship it, along with a truckload of scientists and technicians.

"I'll give you one guess as to where they're shipping it."

Concerned looks flashed all around the table.

"Are you saying...?" Zell asked.

"Yes," she nodded.  "The part – and its attendant team – goes directly to Balamb Garden."

She paused for a moment to let this sink in, then continued.  "There's more.  The reason we're here, in fact.  Just a few minutes ago, Selphie brought me these."

Quistis clicked a button on her remote, and the security photos flashed over the display, holding on each one for five seconds, then moving to the next.

"Odine's working with them?"  Xu said.

"He hasn't been there long," Selphie supplied.  "I just got these from my team at the company today.  It was the first opportunity they had to contact me."

"After Laguna exiled him, he must have gone to Mallis, who has some use for him."

"So whatever this 'WarMech' thing is, Odine's helping them build it," Nida ventured.

"That's the inference I drew," Quistis replied.  "They're not building anything else, as far as we can tell, so that must be his new job."

"And this isn't just a status report, is it?" Seifer queried.

"No.  This is a briefing.  We're going to hit Videlic Arms today.  I want to be airborne by noon."

"D'you think Squall'll be okay with this?" Zell asked, idly.

Quistis held out Squall's Griever pendant.  She held it for a long moment before letting it drop back against her jacket.

"Squall isn't here," she said.  "He's in the infirmary, unconscious.  I have command now, and this is my decision.  If he wants to strip me of my rank for this, that's fine, but right now, we have a problem.  Whatever this company is working on, they're doing it for General Mallis.  Odine just makes it more dangerous, and we don't have time to wait for further intel.  We hit them hard and fast, because, for the instant moment, striking them is the best way we have of striking Mallis.  Anyone who objects doesn't have to come along, but I, for one, don't want to see Mallis' plans – whatever they may be – come to fruition."

Zell looked at the floor, chastised, and Seifer placed his hand on the fighter's back.

"I'm sorry, Zell," Quistis said.  "I know you didn't mean it like that.  But it needed to be said anyway.  I'm in command now, and I'm doing what I see as necessary for our sake, and for the sake of everyone we left behind.  Squall would do the same.  Now," she said, looking around, "does anyone want to sit this mission out?  Because the door is open, and if you want to leave, no one will hold it against you."

She paused for a long moment.  No one moved.

"Okay," she continued.  "Here's the situation."

She clicked the button again, and the screen changed to an overhead view of the area surrounding the Videlic Arms building.

"The red lines highlight the boundaries of the company's land.  They've managed to get the whole area declared a no-fly zone by the Galbadian government."

"So soon?" Nida said.  "The _Ragnarok is practically the only thing in the skies.  What are they thinking?"_

"Air travel is going to become a lot more common in the near future, especially in that region, since the Galbadian Republic is constructing an airstation of its own.  Anyway, getting remotely close to the building with the _Ragnarok is impossible, unless we want the Galbadian military crawling all over us."_

"So we grab a car, gun the engine, and smash through the gate!" Zell exclaimed.

"Someone already tried that," Quistis responded.  "A few years ago, a disgruntled employee loaded a shotgun and decided to assault the people who'd wronged him.  He crashed through the gate, blew past the first security team, and made it most of the way into the compound before they stopped him.  As a response, they installed these."

The next button press lit up blue lines running perpendicular to the road leading into the compound.

"These are concrete barriers, and can be raised on command from the first security point.  Assuming you hit the gate going sixty miles per hour, the barriers will be at full extension by the time you reach them.  Tests have shown that they can withstand impacts from vehicles going over a hundred miles an hour and not receive a scratch.  The vehicles, of course, were not so lucky.

"Further down the road, here," another click, and another set of blue lights, flashing alternately with the first set, "is a second set of barriers.  These remain extended by default, and must be lowered specifically from the checkpoint."

"So what's the plan?" Seifer asked.

"Simple.  We take the _Ragnarok as close as we can, then set her down and leave by car.  We stop at the gate and kill everyone at the checkpoint before they can raise the alarm, leaving someone behind to lower the barricade.  Then we hit the building."_

"Are we aiming for a high body-count on this mission?" he replied.  "I mean, can't we just go around the barricades."

Quistis' eyes darted over to him and she made a small moue of disapproval.  "All the grounds are equipped – at least – with motion sensitive sentry guns.  I wouldn't be surprised if they're mined, as well, so this brings up an important point.  While we're there, do not deviate from the pathways in the slightest.  You step on the grass, you die.

"To answer your question, I'm not concerned with the body-count.  You don't need to go out of your way to kill people, of course, but there's no good reason to hold back.  Our team inside will know enough to get out of the way.  If I thought we had the time to spare, I'd be more than happy to make this a nice, quiet stealth mission, not least of all because it would keep us safe.  But planning a stealth assault on this place would require time we don't have.  Look at this."

She clicked through the next several slides to the few schematics of the building they'd managed to obtain.

"The building itself is constructed as a shell – the bunker you see is only the outer building.  It surrounds the inner building, and the distance between walls is at least six inches at any given point.  They broadcast white noise into the intervening space, to baffle any outside eavesdroppers.  Furthermore, the walls of the inner building aren't straight – they zigzag at random, which creates more surfaces for sound to bounce off."

Irvine whistled.  "They're certainly devoted to secrecy."

"This is serious stuff," Selphie nodded.  "We had an easier time infiltrating Galbadia's intelligence service."

"There's also an undocumented tunnel system underneath the building.  There's no telling how expansive the system is, if it has exits, whatever, so we need to strike before people start to evacuate.

"Odine should be considered our primary objective.  I want to take him alive and bring him back here.

"After that, our goal is to find all the information we can pull on the WarMech project.  We'll do a cursory examination of it on-site, just enough to figure out where to strike next.  Then, we destroy what remains.  I don't care if we have to level the building, but we're putting a stop to whatever it is they're doing.

"Any questions?"  Quistis took one last look around the table, after a pause.  She placed her hand on the stack of Connecters in front of her.  "I've loaded the specific assignments onto your Connecters.  Let's go to work."

----------

AN:

Sorry for the long hiatus.  I had to put the story on hold for a time due to a combination of exams, poor health, and tragedy in the family.  Then, I took a few wrong turns in the writing, and had to make some painful choices regarding what material to keep and what to scrap.  Things should be getting back on track now, though, as we near the story's conclusion.  Your patience is greatly appreciated.


	13. If You Want to Die in Bed

"We've got a vehicle inbound," said Drake, pointing to a blip on the monitor.

"Are we expecting any visitors?" asked Sydney, bored, not looking up from his newspaper.

"Nope."

"Just another practical joke, then," Sydney replied.  "Bets, anyone?  Teenagers called a 'blank' to deliver to us."

Voices piped up from around the gate house.

"Pizza parlor!" suggested Danglars.

"Bo-ring," Drake shot back.

"Flowers?" ventured Villefort.

The answer came in unison.  "Last month."

"Twice," Drake added.

"Religious group looking for converts?" offered Caderousse.

Sydney lowered his paper and spun in his chair to face the speaker.

"Now that," he said, smiling, "is interesting.  I've been working this job for, oh, eight years now, and no one has ever, ever, suggested that.  I would be willing to take that action."

A hand slipped inside his jacket, fishing for his wallet, and had started counting out money when Drake spoke again.

"Uh, guys?  I'm going to place a bet on 'none of the above.'"

"Hmm?" Sydney asked, distracted by the dollar signs dancing before his eyes.

"It's moving a little... briskly for any of our standard culprits."

"You got an estimate on that?" Sydney sighed, placing his wallet back in his jacket.

"Oh, say... eighty miles an hour."

Sydney sighed again.  "Well, whatever it is, let's go meet them at the gate."

The team of security guards mumbled, various degrees of profanity issuing forth from their collective mouths.  They stood and made their grudging way to the gate, weapons at the ready.

"Atten-shun!"  Sydney snapped and the guards, finally, moved as one, standing at the ready to intercept and/or greet the upcoming vehicle.  Sydney stood at the far right, in place for the driver's side window, Drake, his lieutenant, at the passenger's side.

"Big smiles, boys!" Drake quipped through clenched teeth.  "You're part of the Videlic Arms family!"

"Shut up," Sydney hissed.

The blip on the monitor had transformed to a speck on the horizon.  As the guards stood, ready at attention, it increased in size – a black van, windows tinted, still traveling at a high rate of speed.

Drake spoke first.

"I don't think it's slowing down," he murmured.  "Syd...?"

"Nothing to be worried about," Sydney smiled.  "Someone from the Republican government, no doubt.  They like to show off how busy and important they are by driving fast.  Maintain attention."

As it neared, the vehicle did, indeed, appear to slow.

"See?  Slowing down, just like everyone else."

Except, in this instance, "slowing down" amounted to a screeching halt mere inches from the guards, sending several men flying for their lives.  The rear passenger's door flew open, and a woman's voice shouted, "Now, Zell!"

Suddenly, a wiry blond man with an elaborate network of tattoos on his face vaulted out of the vehicle, a blur of elbows, knees, feet, and fists. The instant he touched ground, the van pulled away, splintering the wooden rail blocking its path before receding in the distance.

Drake hit the ground first, before he even had a chance to raise his weapon.  Sydney saw several of his friend's teeth scatter on the pavement, but the human tornado had already moved to his next victim.  Danglars took a vicious blow to the solar plexus, followed up by an open palm strike to his nose, shattering the cartilage and driving it upwards into his brain.  The fighter whirled, then, kicking out at Villefort's knee, causing him to crumple.  The martial artist slammed his elbow down on the back of the guard's neck.

Slowly, as if in a dream, Sydney remembered the gun cradled in his arms.  By the time it left his shoulders and started the long road to firing position, he realized he might as well fight while standing up to his neck in water.  In the span of a heartbeat, his opponent disabled Caderousse too – he lashed out, grabbing Caderousse's wrist and twisting it brutally.  When Caderousse fell towards his assailant, both of the warrior's arms latched onto Caderousse's neck, snapping it as well.

Finally, he whirled on Sydney, who finally had his gun ready to fire.  This stopped the man cold.  Sydney tightened down on his weapon, looking much braver than he felt.  His courage started to return, though, as he saw Drake, blood streaming from his mouth, stagger to his feet behind their attacker.

Sydney's training came back to him.  His lip start to curl in the familiar sneer as he remembered his pride, his heritage, and the rewards he would receive when he handed his employer this man's head on a platter.  Drake, slightly the worse for wear, felt it too, and Sydney could tell by the look in his friend's eye.  The sneer hardened as their enemy raised his hands over his head, straight up in the air.

And smiled.  At the sight of that wolfish grin, with its too-prominent incisors, Sydney knew, more than ever, that he had fallen in far, far over his head.

One of the martial artist's legs kicked up, striking Sydney's gun and sending it spinning in the air.  A hand darted backwards, spiking into Drake's windpipe with enough force that the larynx would eventually expand and result in a slow death by asphyxiation.

As that hand returned from its foray, the warrior's opposite elbow collided with Sydney's nose.  Sydney grabbed his face in pain, falling to one knee in his agony.  He realized his mistake an instant too late.

Sydney looked up to find himself staring down the barrel of his own gun.

"Hands on your head," the man said.  The only words he'd spoken since sweeping through the guard station like a maelstrom.

Sydney rose to his feet, slowly.  "Plea... please," he stammered, holding his hands in front of him.

"On your head," the tattooed man repeated.

"I... I have a family."  Speech came to him only with difficulty.  The coppery taste of blood ran heavy in his mouth, throttling his words.  He started to reach for his wallet.  "I have... a little girl."

"On.  Your.  Head."  The wolf fangs flashed again, not in amusement this time.

Sydney's hand reached inside his jacket pocket.  "I... want to show you..."

"Last chance.  Hands on your head.  I will shoot you."

"Here, see?"  Sydney grasped the wallet and pulled it forth, hoping he could buy his life with talk of his family.

Suddenly, Sydney's world turned white.  No pain at first, just the shock.  As if the entire universe exploded, and he stood at the epicenter of it all.  He felt his head strike the ground like a crack of thunder, but still, mercifully, he felt no pain.

The man in front of him started to recede, slowly at first, then with a frightening speed, as if some unseen conveyor belt whisked him away.  Sydney saw his gun strike the ground.  He heard footsteps and realized that no conveyor belt had carried his murderer away, only Sydney's own failing vision.

As his eyelids started to flutter closed, something brushed his hand, and he knew it by touch.  Leather.  His wallet, falling out of his jacket and spilling open on the sidewalk.  He tried to see it, to take in one last glimpse of his daughter, but his muscles fought him for every instant of control.

Instead of his daughter's picture, Sydney took to his grave the image of the man depressing the button to lower the cement barriers.

Over the throbbing sound of his steadily weakening pulse, he heard the man speak once more.

"Gate under control.  I'm on my way to meet you."

*          *

"Okay, men," Karsh barked as the door opened before him.  "Off your sorry asses.  We're getting the call."

"The call?" Dagny chirped, slapping her cards facedown on the table.  "Hot damn!"

"The call?" asked Tivrusky.  "What does that mean?"

"It means we're getting the call," Creon supplied.  "'bout damn time something happened around here.  'sbeen, like, three months."

"Can we finish this hand?"  Jago's voice came as more of a whine than anything else.

"No," Karsh spat back, clearly not in the mood for dissent.  "I just got off the phone with my boss.  We only get the call when Gate Team screws up.  That means the chief will be pissed off.  But right now, she's only pissed off at them.  I don't want her pissed off at me.  _You really don't want her pissed off at me."_

"But look how much money she's won!" Jago again, petulant and sullen as he pointed to the enormous pile of poker chips in front of Dagny.  "I was just about to get it all back."

She shook her head.  "No, you weren't.  You didn't glance at your chips.  You always glance at your chips when you have a good hand."

Jago huffed in indignation.  Dagny shrugged.  "Creon's nostrils flare on a good hand, and Dog Meat over here," she jerked a thumb to Tivrusky, "always tries to make a bad hand look good by fiddling with chips.  'Planning the attack' and all that."  

As one, the other three players groaned and threw their cards down.  Dagny raked in the chips as Creon gathered the cards again and started shuffling.

"The call!" Karsh bellowed, still standing in the door fuming.  "She's waiting, and I'm not going to take the rap because you morons are having this conversation for the millionth time."

"Right!" Dagny exclaimed, pounding the table and leaping to her feet.  "'When the call comes down, we don't delay!'"

Jago stood, pushing his chair away from the table and puffing out his chest.  "'She gives the call, and we're on our way!'"

"'We'll brave all dangers, great and small!'" Creon supplied.

The three turned their eyes to Karsh, beating his head against the frame of the door.  He stopped for a moment and muttered under his breath, "Because we're always ready, when we get..."

All eyes turned to Tivrusky.  "The call?"

"Now can we go?" Karsh asked as they filed out of the room.

"I still don't know what that means!" Tivrusky pointed out, scurrying after the group.

As they passed through the necessary security doors on their way to the parking garage, Jago dropped behind to talk to Tivrusky.

"Gate Team is supposed to make periodic reports.  Situation normal, and so forth.  No one trying to storm the building, and so forth.  And once every six months or so, Gate Team forgets to check in.  Which is when we get..."

"The call... and so forth?"

"Precisely.  We drive down to the gate, make sure everything's okay, drive back, and park our – what was Karsh's phrase? – 'sorry asses' back in our poker chairs for another six months until the whole thing happens again.  Thus do we pass our humdrum little lives."

"We get paid for this?" Tivrusky asked.

"Well," Creon called back, "if anyone does try to storm the building, and manages to overcome Gate Team, we – Dispatch Team – form the second line of defense."

"Shut it," Karsh growled.  "Get in.  I'm driving."

The team had arrived at their vehicle.  A six-wheeled assault transport, precision crafted for a maximum of speed and maneuverability, while not sacrificing anything in armor or weaponry.

"The latest and greatest from Videlic Arms' mechanized warfare specialists," Creon rhapsodized as he took the front passenger seat.  He slid out a small console and began typing in the various access codes.  "She's a thing of beauty."

Dispatch Team took up their various positions as the monstrosity rolled out of the garage, heading towards the gate.

"Buckle up, Dog Meat," Jago said.

Tivrusky's hand slipped to the side, fishing for a seatbelt, but came up empty.  The others – save Karsh – laughed.

"No seatbelts?"  Tivrusky asked.

"It's just a prototype," Dagny explained.  "But no big deal.  We drive to the gate, drive back, and celebrate with a pizza.  Nothing simpler."

"Interesting," Creon said.  "We do indeed have something heading this way.  Very quickly."

Karsh rolled the options around in his head for a moment.  All the years he'd worked Dispatch, they'd never faced a serious threat.  He felt fairly confident that this, too, had an easy explanation.  Still, given the hell he'd catch from his boss if he screwed up, he decided to chance it.

"Weapons."

"Hot damn!" Dagny clapped her hands once and worked on readying the main turret.

"I'm getting it on visual," Karsh said.

"That means he looked through the windshield," Jago murmured to Tivrusky.

"You trying to raise Gate Team?" Karsh asked.

Jago nodded.  "Nothing."

"I don't like this.  How's the turret coming?"

"It's a little..."  Dagny frowned, biting her lower lip in thought.

"A little?  A little what?"

"Glitchy," Jago supplied.

"Glitchy!" Karsh screamed.  "What the hell do you mean, 'glitchy!'  This thing cost more than my hometown!  Fix it!  Fix it!"

"Since you put it that way," Dagny muttered.

"Uh, sir?" Creon said.  "They don't appear to be slowing down.  I think they're accelerating."

"Radio the base," Karsh ordered, swallowing deeply.  "Get the boss on the line."

"Already tried," Creon said.  "Can't.  Something's blocking the signal."

"Out of curiosity," Tivrusky ventured.  "What sort of collision protection does this... thing... have?"

Silence.

"None," Karsh said.  "None whatsoever."

"None?" Tivrusky's eyes widened in horror.

"'Coming in a later model,'" Creon muttered.

"That's it!" Jago screamed.  "We're gonna die.  We're all gonna die.  Crushed to death in a big, twisted wreck of metal.  That's great.  That's just great."

"Calm yourself, Jago," Dagny purred.  "We've still got the weapons systems.  We'll just blast them to shreds."

"Uh, yeah," Tivrusky said, chewing on a fingernail.  "Great idea.  How's that coming, anyway?"

"All set!" she grinned.  "Now we just need... the firing codes."

"Codes?" Tivrusky's eyebrows shot up.

"Codes," she confirmed.  "The firing codes."

"The firing codes," Jago sighed.

"The firing codes."  Creon smacked his forehead.

"Oh, come on!" Tivrusky shouted.  "You have them, right?  I mean, surely we aren't _that incompetent, right?"_

"Shut up!" Karsh retorted.  "Of course I have them!"

And therein lay the crux of the problem.  Karsh had the firing codes memorized, but no one else did.

"Okay," he said, setting the cruise control and taking a deep breath.  "Creon, get ready to take the wheel.  I'm going back."

"We don't have time for that!" Creon yelped.  "They're heading right for us!"

Karsh looked ahead, and saw that his subordinate had not exaggerated.  The oncoming vehicle, a black van, rushed towards them with frightening speed.  The driver – a nondescript man with close-cropped hair, grinned gleefully at Karsh, and waved at him.  Then, he lowered his hand, pantomiming the pressing of a pedal.  His van accelerated accordingly.  The blonde woman in the passenger seat smiled with grim satisfaction.

"They wouldn't," Dagny breathed.

"I bet they would," Jago nodded.

"Swerve!"  Tivrusky screamed.  "Swerve!  Swerve!"

"Uh..." Karsh seemed stunned, unable to come to a decision.

Creon slammed his fist on the console.  "Do it!"

Finally, Karsh wrenched the wheel to the left with all his might.  Their assault vehicle jerked to the side as the black van rocketed past.  All five watched in horror at what happened next.

  
The rear doors of the van swung open, held in that position by a tall blond man and a short brunette.  Kneeling between them was a third man, balancing a massive tube on his shoulder.  In one terrible instant, Karsh knew the man held a rocket launcher.  The future started to look very grim indeed.

"Holy shit," Creon muttered, one trembling hand pointing to some protruding objects next to the man.  "Tank-busters."

Karsh's spirit fell.  Tank busters.  Each missile, eighteen inches long and weighing in at eight pounds, could shatter five solid inches of concrete.

"Smoke if you got 'em," Dagny said.

The rocket launcher jerked, and a shrieking sound broke the air, like the howling of a thousand sirens.  The assault vehicle erupted in fire, and the van continued towards the building.

*          *

Click.  Click.  Click.

"Move the two to the three," Aki muttered, "move the jack to the queen.  Get rid of the ace."

She sighed.  Despite the likelihood that she'd win her fifth straight game of Solitaire in a row, she couldn't help but wish she could transfer to a more interesting department.  Working the front desk had precious little to recommend it, aside from, "plenty of time to think." 

"Something's going on," Shaami said as she sat down at the desk, just returning from lunch.

"Oh?" asked Aki, thoroughly doubtful.

"I overheard two security guys talking on my way back.  The gate team didn't report in on time, so they called out Dispatch Team to find out why."

Aki looked over at her coworker.  "It's nothing.  Happens every six months or so.  Gate Team starts talking sports, or decides to order a pizza and they forget to radio in.  Security dispatches a car to investigate, Gate Team gets chewed out, and we get memos detailing the security protocols and reminding us to all do our part."

"Oh," Shaami replied, disappointed.

"Don't worry.  You'll get your share of excitement around here.  Sometimes a squirrel wanders into the minefield or a bird gets taken out by the sentry guns."

"That's it?  I never thought working here could be so... mundane."

"Well," Aki shrugged, "there's always the company picnic."

Suddenly, the doors exploded inward, admitting a team of individuals in dark, commando-style outfits.  All wore dark sunglasses, and all had guns trained on the two women at the desk.

"Hands!" snapped a blonde woman in front of the group.  Aki and Shaami blinked, too stunned to move.  "Hands!" the woman ordered again.  Aki complied, but Shaami didn't move.

"Do what they say," Aki said, speaking out of the corner of her mouth.

Shaami nodded, but suddenly lurched to one side, reaching for the alarm.  A tall blond man with a scar running down his face vaulted over the desk and grabbed the young girl, slamming her head forcibly against its hard surface.

"Try it again and I swear I'll spray your brains all over the desk," he snarled, jamming the gun into the base of her skull.

"Restrain her," commanded a short brunette.  Then, to Aki, "Stay smart or you're next."

With one hand, the man targeting Shaami bound her hands with a thick plastic cord.  The gun never wavered.

"Odine's lab," the blonde woman snapped.  "Where is it?"

"Wha- what?" Shaami sputtered.

"She said, 'Odine's lab,'" the blond man hissed.  "Don't make us ask again."  The hammer on his pistol clicked as punctuation.

"We don't have access!" exclaimed Aki.  Eyes – and guns – focused on her.  "But I can get you into the secure area.  Just... don't shoot us."

The blonde nodded.  "No tricks.  We're not screwing around."

"No tricks," Aki nodded.  "I promise."

"Irvine," the woman ordered, pointing to Shaami, "subdue her and wait for Zell to catch up.  You know what to do."

The man with the gun let Shaami up, and, as she stood up, she watched as her friend led the group down the hallway towards the secure area.  One man remained behind, and as he turned to Shaami, he removed his sunglasses.

"Hi," he said, smiling at her.  Instead of mocking her, though, he had genuine warmth in his eyes, mixed with a trace of pity.  Shaami didn't respond.  "What's your name?" he asked.

"Sh... Shaami," she said.

"Shaami.  That's a nice name.  I'm Irvine.  What was it you were diving for so desperately?"

"The alarm button," she replied.

He shook his head, sadly.  "You shouldn't have done that," Irvine said.  "You might have been able to go with your friend.  Now, though, I've got to put you out of commission, and that won't be pleasant."

"You're... you're going to kill me?"

"No.  I'm just going to knock you out, but it still won't be pleasant."

He reached for a collapsible tactical baton hanging from his belt and extended it with a flick of his wrist.  Then, from a pocket of his vest, he removed a glowing crystal encased in a metal assembly and placed it on the desk.

"That... that's an energy crystal," Shaami said.  "Like for pulse ammo."

He smiled broadly, clearly pleased.  "Hey, that's not bad!  Did you just pick that up from working around here?"

"I studied at Galbadia Garden," she replied, sitting back down in her chair.  "Even if you don't want to be a soldier, you pick things up."

He opened a panel on the baton's handle, exposing a cord, which he pulled out and plugged into the crystal's casing.  He looked up at Shaami.  "Galbadia Garden's a nice place.  What'd you study?"

"History."

"Did you ever take one of Maechan's courses?"

She nodded.  "He was my advisor.  Fascinating guy.  If you can stay awake."

He laughed.  "That's for sure."  Then, shifting gears, "Well, we'd better get underway.  You're going to want to lie down on the floor."

"Why?"

"This thing," he waved the baton, "is going to knock you unconscious.  If you're sitting like that, you could hit your head on the way down."

"What is that, anyway?" she asked.

"Officially, it's the SD-341 tactical stun baton.  More colloquially called the Bug Zapper."

"Why do you call it that?"

"You ever watch a bug fly into one of those blue lights?"  Shaami nodded.  "That's roughly what it does to people."  He paused to let Shaami absorb this.  "It delivers a shock strong enough to totally overwhelm your nervous system.  It's like a taser, only much, much stronger.  If you were a behemoth, say, you could expect to be up and around in fifteen to twenty seconds.  It renders the average _person, however, unconscious for around an hour.  Now, lie down."_

Shaami stretched out on the floor, face down, since she still had her hands bound behind her back.

"Would you be more comfortable if I undid your restraints?" Irvine asked.

"Yes," she said.

"Do you promise to behave?  I mean, I have to do this either way, but we can at least be civilized about it."

"I won't try anything," she said.

She heard a snip, and then her restraints fell away.  She rolled over to see Irvine depositing a set of wire cutters back in one of his pockets.

"Okay," he nodded.  Then, he looked over the desk for a moment, searching.  "Here."  He handed her a pencil.  "Bite down on this.  It'll help keep you from swallowing your tongue."

She dutifully bit down on the pencil, resting her arms at her sides.  Irvine stood up and reached for the Bug Zapper.  He knelt down beside her, depressing a button with his thumb.  Shaami thought she could hear the device drawing power from the crystal.

"Have you...?  I mean..." she asked, forcing her words around the pencil.

"Yes," he replied, anticipating the question.

"Does it hurt?"

The sad look crossed his face again.  "More than you can possibly imagine.  But it'll be over quickly."

"Do you have to do this?  I won't..."

"I do."

"But I was just doing my job!" she pleaded.

"And I wish I could tell you I'm just doing mine," he answered, shaking his head.  "But the truth is that this is much more important than that.  Now, are you ready?"

"I guess," Shaami closed her eyes in resignation.

"I'm going to do this through your shirt," he explained.  "It could ruin the shirt, but it's less likely to leave a burn mark."

She opened her eyes again.  "You're not like them, are you?" she asked.  "Your friends."

He laughed ruefully.  "The truth is... I'm exactly like them."

Shaami blinked, and in that instant, he pressed the baton into her side.

He had not lied.  Shaami felt as if he'd set every nerve in her body on fire.  She wanted to open her mouth to scream, but the pain overcame her.  No muscle in her body could respond.  Her mind whirled entirely without direction.  Random thoughts started to pop into her head.  Images, sounds, smells, things she'd forgotten combined with wild hallucinations of things that had never happened.

Then, nothing.

Irvine stood up, releasing the button and collapsing the gun.  As he unclipped the crystal, he heard Zell's voice from the doorway.

"You have such a way with the ladies, cowboy."

Irvine turned, replacing the baton on his belt.  "That thing hurts enough without me being all menacing about it."

"True enough," Zell shrugged.

"How'd the gate go?"

Zell grinned, eyes glittering.  "Could not have been more fun.  Five against one, though."

Irvine snorted, donning his sunglasses once more.  "Poor guys.  C'mon, let's catch up to the group."

Each man touched a button on the frame of his glasses.  Suddenly, they could see glowing neon shoeprints on the floor of the lobby, leading down the hallway, marking the path their comrades had taken.  They followed the path toward the secure area.

*          *

"I'm going out," Rufus said, striding past his secretary.  "Hold all my calls.  Only page me if it's important."

"How will I know?" Dominique asked.

Rufus turned and fixed her with a cold glare.  "If _he calls, it's important.  Anything else can wait."_

"Yes, sir," she replied, shrinking under the weight of his gaze.  Rufus felt a small tingle at her reaction.  He never tired of making his underlings squirm, and as president of Videlic Arms – hand picked for the position by his employer – he had plenty of opportunities to do just that.

Not fully satisfied, he pressed further.  "Any other questions?" he asked, baring his teeth slightly and adding a distinct sneer to his voice.

"No, sir," she said.

"Good.  Now see to it I'm not disturbed."  He proceeded to walk away from her before whirling once more.  "And don't wear that perfume again.  It's cheap, and the smell nauseates me."

The perfume didn't bother him in the slightest, and he knew it cost significantly more than she could afford on her meager salary.  She crumpled in her chair, and Rufus had to fight to suppress a smile.

"Well?" he asked.

"Yes, sir," she said, unable to raise her eyes to look at him.

"Good," he repeated, turning his back on her and proceeding down the labyrinthine corridors of Videlic's executive wing.

As he walked, he came across one of the receptionists from the front desk, with a group of dark-suited military types closely behind her.  None looked particularly pleased to see him.

"Aki," he called out, turning around to face her.  "Where are you going?"

She whirled, startled, and gasped a little at the sound of her name.  "Me?" she asked, brushing a strand of hair back behind her ear.  "I, uh, I'm just... taking these people to the secure area.  They have an appointment with Big Man."

"Really?" he cocked his head.  "That's rather curious, because I have no knowledge of any such appointment."

A blond woman stepped forward, closing in on Rufus.  She stood too close to him and, for once, he felt like the one under the microscope as she surveyed his face.  Because of her sunglasses, he couldn't see her eyes, but he could feel their weight studying him, probing for weaknesses.

"Let me let you in on a little secret," she hissed.  Then, leaning in close enough that he could feel her breath on his face, "We have something in common.  Do you know what that might be?"

Rufus shook his head.

"We work for the same person.  Now, do you want to get out of the way?"

Rufus' eyes narrowed.

"Be that as it may, no appointments with Big Man are to take place without my direct knowledge.  Our employer gave me that instruction specifically."

She scoffed.  "And you think, somehow, that he needs – or has the time -- to keep you informed of every decision he makes?"

"Well..." Rufus started, but she silenced him immediately.

"There are two ways we can do this.  One is that you get out of our way and let us do our job.  The other is for you to delay us while you get him on the phone, preventing us from completing our mission and forcing us to cool our heels until he has the free time – and the inclination – to receive a call from the likes of you.  I don't have to tell you how little patience he has for being needlessly disturbed, do I?"  Her voice dripped with icy contempt.

He set his jaw, determined not to give in to her threats.  She slowly shifted her weight, resting one hand on her hip.  The other traveled up with obvious menace, reaching for her sunglasses.  Intense dread gripped Rufus' heart, and he knew he couldn't face this woman's cold hatred.

Rufus nodded his assent and the group resumed their progress.  He burned with humiliation at his own cowardice.

"Aki," he called after them.  The group stopped and turned to face him.  "My office.  First thing tomorrow.  No excuses."

Worry clouded her brow as her whirled, striding purposefully away from the group.  He tried to take satisfaction in thought of the browbeating he'd give the girl in the morning, but even this could not assuage the burning mixture of rage, indignation, humiliation, and shame within him.

*          *

"'Big Man?'" asked one of the women behind her.

"Yes," Aki nodded, still guiding her captors to the secure area.  "It's Odine's code name.  He was dissatisfied with code names assigned to him in Esthar, so he insisted on choosing his own."

"Figures," said one of the men.

They walked on in silence until they reached the elevator leading down to Videlic's restricted zone.

"This is as far as I can take you," Aki said.  "I don't have the codes to open the doors."

"Let us worry about that," answered the brunette, removing her sunglasses.  Her eyes flickered to the blonde, who nodded almost imperceptibly.

"Aki," said the tall woman, "we have to make a little trip to the restroom."

Aki nodded mutely, knowing she had no choice.  Once more, they headed down the hallways, soon crossing paths with two more members of the assault team.  Aki recognized one of them as the man who had stayed behind with Shaami.  She turned to look as they passed.

"How did they find us?" she asked.

"Eyes front," snapped the blonde.

Aki complied, but she had already seen the brunette fitting some sort of device over the keypad controlling access to the elevator.  Suddenly, Aki found herself wondering if she'd seen too much.

"Here we are," she said when they reached the bathroom.

"Inside," ordered her captor.

A mounting sense of dread overcame Aki as they entered the bathroom and the blonde started checking the stalls, assuring herself of their emptiness.

She pointed to a stall at the end.  "Take a seat," she said, shoving Aki towards the toilet.

"Why?" Aki asked.

"Because I'll shoot you if you don't.  Sit down."

  
Eager to avoid that eventuality, Aki took a seat on the toilet, shutting her eyes as the reality of her situation closed in around her.  When she opened them again, the blonde had already started uncoiling a length of cord – the same material with which the invaders had restrained Shaami at the front desk.  The cord wrapped tightly around Aki's body, binding her to the toilet and forcing her to sit up straight, arms hanging uselessly at her sides.

"Why are you doing this?" Aki sobbed, finally overcome from the weight of the day's events.

"From outside the stall, it will look like you're just taking a bathroom break," the woman replied, her voice clipped and distant.  She seemed oblivious to Aki's distress or, at the least, disinterested in it.

"That's not what I meant," Aki cried.  "This, us, all of it.  Why are you here?"

The blonde's hand snapped downward swiftly, and, suddenly, she held a baton.  Aki neither saw the woman reach for it or extend it.

"That would be telling," the blonde replied, jamming the device into Aki's side.

Aki endured an eternity of blinding agony, then, nothing.

--

AN:  Once more, let me apologize for the delay.  The excuse this time is the same as before – poor health, exams, and tragedy in the family, except greater doses of all three.  Also, even more than last time, I took wrong turns in the writing of this chapter.  What you have now is fully the fourth incarnation of this particular scene, but it wound up being something I'm actually proud of, and I think the story as a whole will be better off as a result.

Even so, once I had the story back on track, my computer decided to abandon me.  We have a turbulent relationship at the best of times, and these are not the best of times.  So the delay grew ever longer.

  
Furthermore, this is only the first section of the chapter.  Because of its length and the time since the last update, I'll publish this section now and supply the next part (already six pages long) when it is completed.

  
Thank you, again, for your patience.  If you are reading this story, and enjoying it, let me know, because nothing gets me motivated to write like the thought of people actually waiting on the next chapter.  The guilt builds up and... well, you can see the result.


	14. Ephesus

Rufus threw open the door to her office and stormed inside, slamming it shut behind him.  He stood there, framed in the doorway, seething audibly, but she did not look up at him, focusing instead on the papers before her.

"Am I," he said, tired of waiting for her acknowledgement, "or am I not president of this company?"

"Mmm-hmm," she nodded, still not paying attention to him.

"No, seriously," he pressed, coming further into the room.  "Was I not hand-picked by our employer to be the sole executive authority of Videlic Arms?"  He placed a hand directly in the middle of her documents.  She looked at it a long moment before responding.

"Actually," she said, "you were given the position on a temporary basis, with the possibility of retaining it based on the success of the WarMech project.  And, you aren't the sole authority here.  Some of us," her dark eyes traveled from his hand up the length of his arm and to his face, "aren't even remotely accountable to you."  She flashed him a dazzling smile that seemed at once charming and predatory.  He removed his hand and she returned her gaze to the papers.  Rufus felt his jaw starting to clench.

"I ran across one of the receptionists escorting a group to the secure area.  She says they have an appointment with Odine."

"And?"  She dropped her pen and leaned back in her chair.

"And I expect that, given my position, I should be kept informed of such things.  If he's sending someone to meet with Odine, I want to know."

Scarlet leaned forward, locking her hands together.

"May I remind you that Odine is not a part of your project.  He is my concern.  I have kept you informed according to my orders.  No more, no less."

He glowered at her, but she didn't seem to mind.  Part of her mouth turned up in the ghost of a smile that faintly mocked him.

"Is that really what you came here to discuss?" she asked.

"No."  She'd seen through him again, and once more he felt the sting of humiliation creeping up his neck.

"Good," Scarlet answered, pushing her chair away from the desk and rising in one easy motion.

Her raven hair seemed to absorb the light striking it as she watched him from across the desk.  Something about her – her lightly olive skin or her easy, disinterested movements as she crossed the room – suggested ancient nobility.

One arm reached out and grabbed his tie, pulling him towards her.

"Watch the tie!" he said, slapping her hand away.  "It costs more than some people make in a year."

Her mouth twisted into a snarl as she grabbed the tie again.  He heard a click, and then felt his shirt splitting up the middle.  Rufus glanced down to see a switchblade cutting its way towards his face.  She did not stop until she had sliced his tie off, exposing his chest.  He heard a clatter as the buttons struck the floor.

"Those buttons were ivory!" he exclaimed.  "Not just ivory-colored.  Real ivory."

She seized him by the hair and tugged him forward, kissing him savagely on the mouth.  As she did so, he felt the cold steel of her switchblade tracing a path down his chest.

"Shut up," she sneered, breaking the kiss, "before I decide to slice off something you _can't afford to replace."_

"Bitch," he hissed.  She smiled again, all predator, and no charm.  She leaned towards him, and Rufus could just feel her hot breath on his face when he heard the intercom beep.

"Damn," he swore as she broke away.  "Ignore it."

Her eyes, dark pools of liquid night flashed at him as she pressed the speaker button.

"Uh, Commander?" came the voice on the other end.  "We seem to be having a situation."

"Let them handle it," Rufus said.

Her eyes seemed to drill holes through him.  "Don't interfere with my mission.  Sit down and shut up."  Then, back to the phone, "How serious is this situation?"

"We aren't sure, Commander, but we may have a breach."

She nodded.  "I'm on my way.  I'll meet you outside the lab.  Continue as normal until then."

"Understood."  She switched the phone off, then started entering the combination to open her weapons locker.

"A breach?" Rufus exclaimed.  "We're under attack?"

"Be quiet," she instructed.

"But I've got to evacuate my teams!"

"As I understand it, your project is largely completed.  Furthermore, my mission takes priority, and I won't have you ruining it with your panic."

"But if we're under attack... what if they come for me?"

"You're a disgusting coward," she spat, swinging the safe open and withdrawing a large rifle.  "Here," she said, throwing it to him.  "If you're so afraid, hold on to this."  She pulled a pistol out of the safe and deposited it in the holster at her side.

"What... what's his?" he asked, struggling with the massive weapon.

"Idiot," she said from the door.  "At least learn your own damn products."

*          *

"What's the situation?" Scarlet asked, meeting two of her subordinates outside Odine's lab.

"Well, Commander," the first answered.

"Quiet, Lieutenant Biggs," she replied.  "I was addressing your superior.  Wedge?"

Biggs cursed under his breath as Wedge opened his mouth to speak.

"Biggs," Scarlet snapped.  "Cease your muttering at once or your already sorry career will suffer yet another ignominious setback.  Proceed, Wedge."

"Thank you, Commander," Wedge nodded.  "Gate Team failed to check in with their regular report.  Rather than disturb you, I sent out Dispatch to investigate.  They have not, as yet, reported in.  A few minutes ago, the noise generators went down."

"Do we have signals coming into the building?" Scarlet asked.

"We're looking into that, but I haven't been able to get a definitive answer either way."

Scarlet's mind flashed back to something Rufus said – a receptionist escorting a group to a meeting with Odine.

"Too many coincidences," she proclaimed.  "I'm declaring a level one lockdown.  Phone it in, Biggs."

Biggs snapped open his phone, a connection to the security center already established.  The three of them proceeded into Odine's lab.

"Your attention please, everyone," she called to the team of researchers.  "I'm afraid your services will not be needed for the rest of the day.  You are free to return to your quarters.  We will notify you when this project returns to active status."

The researchers quickly shut down their computers and filed out of the room.  Odine gasped in horror, closing in on Scarlet.

"What?  What are you doing?" he cried.  "You can't barge in here and..."

"Can and did, Doctor," she replied, her gaze traveling over his head to the prototype of Junction Machine Adel.  She expected to see a thick series of security doors blocking the way but, instead, the machine stood unguarded.  "Biggs, why isn't that security door down yet?"

"I can't get the control room on the phone.  There's no answer."

"Damn," Scarlet swore.  She crossed the room to a still-active computer and started typing at it.  Screens scrolled past her rapidly.  "Damn," she said again.  The speed of her typing increased.  "Damn!" she cursed a final time, slamming a fist down on the keyboard.

"Commander?" Wedge asked.

She looked up at him.  "They've locked out most of the security controls, which means they've taken the control room.  Data is being siphoned off at an incredible rate, so I assume they've taken Archives and Records as well."

"Why would they want Archives and Records?" Biggs pressed.

Scarlet looked at Odine for a long moment, then shifted her gaze to Biggs.  "It's where we store the complete set of building schematics, including the underground areas... and this lab."  She nodded, slowly.  "That's it.  Take the doctor to the evacuation chamber."

"What?" Odine shrieked as Biggs and Wedge closed in on him.  "No!  You can't!  There iz work to be done!"

"Take him.  Wedge, you have your orders.  I'll join you shortly."

Wedge flashed Scarlet a quick salute.  "Doctor," he said to Odine, "please accompany us."

"I will not!  There iz no time for delay!"

Wedge gestured to Biggs, and both men grabbed Odine by the arms, frog-marching him out of the laboratory.  Scarlet turned in the opposite direction and headed back towards her office.

*          *

Rufus sat in Scarlet's office, hanging on to the rifle for dear life.  He tried not to think of the breach, the impending danger, the fear of reprisals from his employer.

"Okay," he whispered, taking a deep breath.  He closed his eyes and forced his mind to wander.  Soon enough, he found his mind replaying the events of his meeting with the group en route to see Odine – the invaders, most likely.  Something about that meeting troubled him, danced at the edges of his frazzled consciousness, but he couldn't nail it down.  Somehow, the blonde woman seemed familiar, but the answer eluded him.

The door opened and Scarlet pressed through, her movements a blur.

"Well?" Rufus asked, standing up, still holding the rifle.  "What's going on?"

"Sit down," she snapped.  "Shut up."

"It's true!" he screamed.  "A breach, I knew it!  I'm getting out of here."

He barely started for the door before finding himself on the floor, Scarlet on top of him, her pistol jammed between his teeth.  The barrel tickled the back of his throat, and he had to fight to keep from retching.

"Stay here and you have a chance of living.  Go outside and you'll probably die.  Bother me again, and I'll shoot you where you stand."

She stood up, removing her pistol, and crossed to her wall safe, working quickly to enter the combination.  Rufus stood, slowly, and sat in one of the chairs, rocking slowly back and forth.

Scarlet withdrew a large file folder from her safe and left the room without further comment.

*          *

Biggs and Wedge dragged Odine into the evacuation chamber, a large room deep inside the tunnels beneath Videlic Arms.

"Here we are, Doctor," Wedge said, as they released Odine.  The doctor looked around, glaring.  Wedge gestured with his right hand.  "If you would be so kind as to restrain your movements to the carpeted area."

He'd pointed to a long stretch of carpet in the middle of the room.  On it, Odine saw all the furnishings of a modest apartment.  A sofa, chairs, television, a small kitchenette, even a bathroom area, partially closed off by a collapsing screen.

"You see?" Wedge smiled.  "All the comforts of home."

Odine whirled on the man.

"My home iz an enormouz apartment over my laboratory.  My home iz in Esthar.  Thiz iz not my home!" His words dripped with venom.

"Your home, sir, is wherever the General tells you it is.  And right now, his desire is that your home be in the evacuation chamber.  The carpet, please."

"Just do it, man," Biggs sighed, in no mood to deal with a research scientist turned prima donna.

"And if I will not?"

Wedge leaned in, gripping Odine's arm.  "I have two orders.  The first is to return you to Balamb Garden alive.  I am prepared to do this at the cost of my own life.  The second order only activates if I find myself unable to complete the first.  Do you know what that is?"

Odine shook his head, cowed by the menace in Wedge's voice.

"It is to kill you on the spot.  Now," he released Odine's arm, "the carpet.  I will not ask again."

Nodding, Odine mutely took a seat on one of the chairs.  Wedge moved to the end of the living area, which terminated abruptly and converted to a stainless steel computer room.  Biggs took a seat next to the doctor.

"Look, man, I know how it is," he said.  "I feel bad for you getting kicked out of Esthar and everything.  Me, I was on the fast-track in the Galbadian Army until these punk kids showed up and ruined my life.  This guy," he jerked a thumb in Wedge's direction, "used to work for me."

Scarlet swept into the evacuation chamber, moving at once to Wedge's side.  "Any problems?"

"None so far.  The doctor was a trifle uncooperative, but he's reconsidered."

Scarlet crossed to Odine.  She stood before him for a moment before her left hand lashed out, grabbing his ear and twisting viciously.  He howled in pain, dropping out of the chair and sinking to his knees.  She retained her grasp on his ear as she leaned in to him.

"Listen very carefully, Doctor.  You either do what we say, or you die here.  Personally, I don't care which you chose, but my primary goal is to return you to Garden.  Rest assured that should you defy me, I will make your death very, very painful indeed."

She released him and returned to the computer area, setting to work immediately on the device before her.  From here, she could at least access the security cameras, despite the fact that the invaders had shut down the system at large.

She flipped rapidly through the rooms of the building, confining her search to the secure areas.

"Found them," she whispered, studying the screen before her.

It showed Odine's laboratory, now emptied of its researchers and occupied, instead, by the invaders.  She studied their faces, smiling in recognition, and pressing the screen capture button as necessary.  Some members of the group knelt near the Junction Machine, placing explosive charges around it.  They rose, and started to file out of the room.  The small brunette with them glanced up as they left the room, looking directly into the camera.  She stuck out her tongue and then jumped up, smashing the device with her fist.

"Phone," she commanded, extending her hand.  Wedge handed her his phone, and she dialed without taking her eyes off the screen.

"Sir?" she said, once it rang through.  "This is Scarlet.  The company is under assault.  I've got images of the intruders, and I think you'll want to see them.  Transmitting now."

She pressed a button on the computer before her, and the images wound their way through the either to Balamb Garden.

"Yes, sir," she replied.  "I noticed that as well...  As you command, General."

She snapped the phone shut and turned to her subordinates.

"Gentlemen, the General has given us permission to withdraw.  Please make final preparations."  She flashed a glance in Odine's direction, "Doctor, remember what I have said.  Stay seated."

Biggs and Wedge joined Scarlet in the computer area.  Both men reached into their jackets and produced key cards on chains.  They simultaneously inserted the cards into slots on the side of one computer.  The machine lit up, springing to life under their touch.  The glass covering its main console receded.

Next, they reached for a set of switches, continuing to act in unison.  The floor beneath them started to vibrate.

"Ready, Commander," Wedge said turning to Scarlet.  She took up a central position at the console, and started to enter the final data strings.  The door to the evacuation chamber exploded, fragmented into scrap metal at the force of an external blast.  Biggs howled in rage as the invaders stormed into the room.

*          *

"Odine!"  Quistis screamed.  "Shoot him!"

The First Team dropped into firing positions, unloading their pistols in the doctor's direction.  A woman standing to one side of the room slammed her fist on a button and the room erupted into chaos.

A set of thick metal bars, prison-style, shot from the floor and ceiling, cutting off the living and computer areas from the rest of the room.  A heavy layer of bulletproof plastic came next, followed by thick metal walls.

"Shit!" Quistis swore.  "Irvine, pulse ammo!"  Irvine, on one knee, immediately started reconfiguring Exeter, but Quistis had the sinking sensation that she'd already lost.

The rumbling sensation increased, and the closed-off area within the evacuation chamber – bars, plastic, metal and all – pulled away, with an unmistakable sound.  A train on its tracks.  The entire assembly had converted into an impenetrable train car and started out of the building where, no doubt, it would rejoin the network of train tracks leading back, inexorably, to Balamb.

Quistis closed her eyes, mind reeling trying to think of a new solution, a way to pursue them.  She felt a tugging on her sleeve and reopened her eyes.

"What?" she snapped.

Nida continued tugging, staring into a corner of the room, his jaw slack.  He pointed, and Quistis followed his gaze.  He looked longingly on some sort of small airship, with a needle nose and crescent-shaped wings, constructed of a silvery metal that shone with iridescent colors.

"Can we?" Nida pleaded.  "Please?"

Quistis looked at the ship, which seemed large enough to accommodate them all.

"Can you fly it?" she asked.

Nida didn't answer, but nodded, jaw still hanging open – the glint in his eye, though, told Quistis exactly what she needed to know.

"Let's do it," she said.  "Selphie, you take shotgun.  Transmit the tunnel system schematics to Xu, and have her check them against diagrams of the train system.  Let's figure out where we're going first."

Nida slid into the cockpit, running his hand quickly over the console before him, seeming to absorb the ship's specifics by touch.  He studied the buttons arrayed in front of him and whistled in appreciation.

"This thing is really advanced," he murmured.

"Don't care," Quistis shot.  "Make it fly."

His hands started working the controls, running on sheer intuition.  The ship started to hum, and levitated off the ground in response.

"So far, so good," Nida grinned, warming up along with the ship.

Suddenly, it died.  The humming stopped, and the ship lowered itself to the ground once more.

"Hmph.  Didn't see that coming."

Quistis barely opened her mouth to comment when Zell sprung forward.  "On it!" he chirped, wriggling in the space between Nida and Selphie and working his way underneath the pilot's legs.

"Screwdriver!" Zell called out from the vicinity of Nida's ankles.  The pilot reached into his jacket pocket and produced a screwdriver, passing it down to Zell.

A few moments passed, and a panel dropped down.  Zell passed it up to Nida, who handed it into the rear passenger area.

"Holy shit!" Zell breathed, looking at the vehicles' innards for the first time.

"Zell?" Seifer ventured.

"You guys remember Tear's Point?  All the crystals and the Lunatic Pandora and everything?  It's like that in here.  Wow..."

"Make it fly!" Quistis commanded.

"Sure thing!  Wire cutters!"  Nida dutifully passed down a set of wire cutters to Zell.  A few seconds passed, and Zell called up again.  "Okay, try it now."

Nida resumed his work on the controls once more.  The humming resumed and the ship started to hover once more.  Zell extricated himself from between Nida's legs.

"Wow," he said.  "It's bright down there."

"Okay, guys," Nida said.  "Hold on, because we're ready to..."

The humming faltered once more and the ship started to drop, the left wing brushing the ground.  Zell, still perched between Nida and Selphie, growled, striking the control panel with his fist.  The wings evened out, and Zell moved back to his seat.

"Let's hit it!" Nida exclaimed, pressing the control stick forward.  The ship lurched forward, rocketing from its berth at an incredible speed.

"Wall!" Irvine exclaimed.  "Wall!"

"Huh?" Nida turned in his seat to face the sharpshooter.

"We're going to hit the wall!" Irvine screamed.

Nida whirled, and pulled on the control stick, jerking the ship hard to one side before righting it and following the train tracks   Selphie started issuing commands to Nida, instructing him on the correct path through the winding network of tunnels.

*          *

The building-wide PA system activated, broadcasting a message Rufus didn't even know existed.

"Thank you for your hard work on behalf of Videlic Arms," came a woman's voice, calm and even.  "Your efforts have been appreciated, but we are under attack, and your services will no longer be needed.  Essential personnel have already been evacuated.  If you remain to hear this message, you have been deemed non-essential, and should already be aware that you will not be considered a hostage should the situation arise.  While Videlic Arms has a profound concern for your wellbeing, the cost of insuring all employees would be far too prohibitive.  For more information regarding Videlic's emergency policies, including hostage situations, wrongful death and survival benefits, and assaults on the building, please consult your employee handbook, or the pamphlet entitled 'So We're Under Attack,' available from your HR representative..."

Rufus listened to the message with an increasing sense of dread.  He could feel it in his stomach – the moment to jump ship had arrived.  He could go to Odine's lab, pull the project data, and report in at Balamb Garden.  If he saved the Junction Machine, the General might not kill him.

"Screw it," Rufus said, leaping from the chair in Scarlet's office and running through the halls.  Chaos surrounded him.  The soothing form of the message did nothing to dampen its substantive impact.  Employees trampled each other in their mad dash to safety.  Only Rufus proceeded deeper into the building.

Before long, he arrived at Odine's lab, moving inside.  He sat down at the nearest terminal and started to call up the project files.  A blinking light from the corner of his eye caught his attention.  He looked up to see Junction Machine Adel, surrounded by plastic explosives.  The light he noticed – attached to the timing device – glowed like an angry wound.

Holding his breath, Rufus stepped forward, nearing the device.  

5.

4.

"Shit," he said, too paralyzed to run.

3.

2.

Suddenly, his memory jogged.  The blonde woman, the one from the elevator.  He knew where he'd seen her face before.  Get rid of the sunglasses, change the hair color...

1.

"Son of a bitch," he whispered.

Boom.

*          *

"We keep this up, and we'll catch them in no time," Nida grinned, pleased at the ship's speed.

"Yeah," Selphie said, "but there's a three-way split coming up, and we don't know which way they went."

"Left," Quistis murmured.

"Huh?" Nida asked.

"Go left," Quistis nodded, more sure of herself.

"You sure, Quisty?" Selphie pressed.

"No.  Yes.  Not really.  Call it a hunch."

At the intersection, Nida swung the ship to the left, and Quistis bit her lower lip in hopeful anticipation.  Sure enough, the train car slid into view.

"Not bad, blondie," Seifer grinned, slapping Quistis on the back.  "How'd you know?"

Quistis shrugged.  "It's what I would have done."

"What now?" Nida asked.

"Stay on their tail," Quistis instructed.  "Selphie, see if you can warm up the weapons systems."

Selphie started work on the control panel in front of her.  The group heard the massive cannons under the wings heating up, as the brunette worked the buttons.  She flipped a series of three switches and then pressed a large green button, prompting the ship to lurch.  The left wing dipped dangerously again, scraping the wall of the tunnel.  Nida fought to retain control and Selphie sat back, looking at the control panel in wide-eyed fear.

"They must still be working the bugs out of it," Irvine said.

"Nida, forget about chasing them.  Just get us aboveground in one piece.  We've done all we can today," Quistis commanded, no small amount of regret in her voice.

"You sure?  I can still get this thing under control."

"Yeah!" Zell chimed in.  "I'll work on the power, and Irvine can get the weapons online.  We can still catch them."

"No," she shook her head.  "No.  We did good work today, but... it's over."

Nodding, Nida eased the ship back, lowering it gently to the ground, as Zell slid forward to rework the wiring.  Quistis slumped forward, holding her head in her hands.

"We did fine," Seifer said.  "We know what they were up to, we destroyed that... apparatus, and I'll bet you ten to one that Mallis doesn't let Odine live through this."

"Yeah," Quistis smiled.  "So why do I feel like we lost?"


	15. Healing Hands

Quistis took a bite out of her sandwich, not noticing its flavor. She ate at the table on the top floor of Squall's office, where she took most of her meals. Squall still showed no signs of recovery, and the data from Videlic gave them only partial insights into Mallis's plans. They still knew nothing of the WarMech project, except that it reached completion prior to their assault on the company. The machine they destroyed related to Odine's Junction Machine Ellone, designed to pull Adel's consciousness from the past and put it into a present-day Sorceress.

Xu sat opposite Quistis, her right hand sneaking across the table to capture the occasional fry, her left working on the crossword puzzle before her. The ceaseless sound of her pen scratching the paper provided the only audible accompaniment to their meal. Quistis stole a glance at the puzzle, noting, without surprise, that not a single mistake marred its inky perfection. Every letter sat confident in its box, absent corrections of any kind. Xu never even took a break to consider the clues; she wrote with the same bemused calm with which she might write a letter to her friends.

Quistis's eyes floated over to the box sitting off to one side. It had manifested, at the front gate of Esthar Garden, placed there by persons unknown. The attached card – written in an archaic language used by the Sorceress Queens of Esthar – read, "For Quistis_._"_ This clue alone let her know who sent the package, but had any doubts remained, the contents would have dispelled them._

On opening the package, Quistis had pulled forth a human heart, pierced through with a letter opener (shaped like a gunblade; Rinoa's gift for Squall on his birthday, back before the fall of Balamb Garden). A note, pinned to the heart by the letter opener, read, "I tried putting Odine to work, but after you destroyed his lab, his heart just wasn't in it. Perhaps you need a new paperweight. JV (YM)."

Without trying to trace the package – an exercise in futility, she knew – Quistis understood the initials: "Justinian Varrant (Yvaine Mallis)."

So. He'd killed Odine. Quistis found some comfort in this fact, in part because the world seemed safer since the demise of the demented scientist, but because it indicated that they'd dealt a significant blow to Mallis's plans. Beyond that, though, she felt conflicted.

During her exile, she'd spent a considerable amount of time in Esthar and had worked, on occasion, with Odine. They'd talked. As distasteful as she found the man and his methods, she respected his intellect. Though, of late, most of his inventions sprung from the minds of his associates, Odine had an undeniable brilliance about him – much of it in the field of self-promotion. He could wrangle corporate and government funding like no one she'd ever seen.

She lamented, too, the loss of chance. If they'd captured Odine, she could have interrogated him, taken apart his brain piece by piece, and laid his secrets bare. She would she have illuminated Mallis's darker plans, and she would have _enjoyed it. The chance to match wits with someone of Odine's caliber did not often rear its head._

Xu slapped her pen down. "Done," she nodded. "Time?"

Quistis glanced at her watch. "Three minutes, seventeen seconds. A new record, I believe."

Xu frowned. "'Hardest crossword puzzle in the world,' my ass," she scoffed, gesturing to the magazine's proud claim. "I should write a letter to the editor."

"'Dear Sir or Madam,'" Quistis began, staring at the ceiling, "'I have come to the conclusion that your puzzles are a six-letter word for drilling and a four-letter antonym for sharp. While I do not intend to continue solving them, rest assured that should I ever need a nine-letter sleep-inducing drug, I will turn to your magazine.'"

"'Boring,' 'dull,' and 'soporific,'" Xu shot back, smiling a little. "Give me something hard next time."

Quistis leaned forward, a smile breaking across her face as she rose to the challenge. She stopped, though, at the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs. She recognized the rhythm as Selphie's. 

"Hello," Selphie smiled as she came into view. She crossed to Xu's side and helped herself to a fry.

"Evening, Sel," Quistis said.

"You wanted to see me?"

"Yeah," Quistis nodded. "Have a seat."

Selphie took a seat at the table and folded her hands. "What's up?"

"A mission's come up. You're the only one who can handle it."

Selphie's eyes narrowed and Quistis could see the wheels turning inside her friend's head. Quistis knew her words set Selphie to examining every intelligence report she'd read in the last six months, trying to determine what Quistis found so important.

"Okay," she shrugged. "Shoot."

Quistis reached to the side and produced a folder emblazoned with high-level security stickers: "RECIPIENT'S EYES ONLY," "TOP SECRET," "CONFIDENTIAL," "CLASSIFIED." She slid it across the desk to Selphie, who started to slice it open with her fingernail.

"Letter opener?" Xu asked, gesturing to the box containing Odine's heart.

"Uck. Odine goop." Selphie's nose wrinkled in disgust.

She opened the folder to find a single page of newspaper. 

"Huh?" she asked. Her eyes scanned the paper, darting back and forth as they moved down the page. "Oh," she said. Her eyes flickered up to the top of the page, checking the date. "Oh."

Selphie held an old copy of the _Winhill News. The page included the obituary column, and marked the passing of Raine Loire._

"Today's the anniversary," Quistis said. "I didn't know if you remembered or not."

"No, I..." Selphie shook her head. "Thanks."

"Don't mention it," Quistis answered. "Go."

Selphie nodded and got up to leave. Xu and Quistis watched her descending the stairs.

"She seems better," Xu commented. "The Videlic mission was good for her."

"She needed the sense that we're doing something about Mallis," Quistis said. "Something's still bothering her, though."

Xu glanced at Quistis and read between the lines. "You think it'll work?"

Quistis smiled, one eyebrow forming a perfect arch. "Have I ever been wrong before?"

"'Ooh, Squall!'" Xu squealed, clasping her hands and fluttering her eyelids. "'I'm going on my first mission tomorrow, and you should come with me!'"

Quistis shot her friend a mock glare. "You know what you are? A five-letter word for female dog."

* *

Laguna looked up from his whiskey to see Selphie standing in the doorway.

"Selphie!" he exclaimed, at once pleased and confused. "How? Why? What?" He stopped and took a deep breath. "Starting over. Please, come in."

She entered his office and took a seat at the other side of his desk, smoothing her skirt as she lowered herself into the chair. She leaned over and sniffed the white lilies sitting in a vase on the desk.

"Nice," she said. "Raine used to grow these, right?"

"Yeah, they were her favorite. Elle and I send them to each other every year. Would you care for a drink?" he asked, gesturing to the bottle next to him.

"No, thank you," she smiled.

"Okay. First things first: how did you get past security?"

She shrugged. "Your guards weren't trained at Garden."

"Yet," he added. "I expect the guards you're training for me to be a little more adept."

"They'll be good," she winked, "but not better than I am."

"Second question: how did you know I'd be here?"

She smiled again, this time with a trace of sorrow. "Because I'm guessing that at about this time of night, that huge apartment of yours seems awfully empty. Especially tonight."

"True enough," he nodded. "Finally: what brings a lovely lady like you to my office at such an unusual hour?"

"I thought you might like some company."

"Sure thing. What say we open the window, get a little fresh air?"

"That?" Selphie asked, pointing to the massive picture window behind Laguna's desk.

Laguna picked up a small remote control and pointed at the window, pressing a button. The window split into two halves, sliding away and wrapping around the outside of the building, exposing the room to the air. A piece of the floor slid forward, extending into the empty space, turning into a balcony.

Selphie blinked, amazed.

"Pretty cool, huh?" Laguna grinned. "This job does have some perks." He stood up, extending his hand to her. "C'mere. You gotta try this."

He led her over to the edge of the balcony, where he stretched out on his back, head dangling over the edge. Selphie followed suit.

"Oh... It's gorgeous," she breathed. The sky seemed to wrap around them in all directions. With a simple motion of her eyes, she could go from looking at the glittering cityscape of Esthar to the brilliant stars in the sky. The night seemed alive with an infinite number of sparkling jewels.

"I love it," Laguna said. "The only place you can get a better view is up there." He pointed a hand towards the sky. "You ever go?"

"Space?" Selphie asked. "No. Squall took Quistis along, and I wound up babysitting Zell."

Laguna turned, propping himself up on one elbow. "Well, you know how to fly the _Ragnarok_, right? Why don't you just... Fwoosh!" He pantomimed the ship blasting into space.

"Yeah, right," she laughed. "Nida _hates it when other people fly his baby. He goes into conniptions if Squall even _mentions_ flying it."_

"Why's that?"

"Squall, for all his talents, is not exactly our best pilot. He's a great driver, but something about flying just..." She shook her head, then laughed again. "This one time, we were coming back from a mission, and Squall was flying for some reason. So, he's trying to land the ship, and Seifer and Zell were horsing around in the cockpit, like, having a shoving match, and Xu's on the headset, trying to get the mission report, and ground control was trying to direct the landing..."

"And?"

"And... Squall sort of... nudged the wall of the hangar. He's been forbidden to fly ever since then." Laguna could hear the smile in her voice.

"You miss him, don't you?"

"It's been hard... Everyone at Garden –"

"I didn't ask about everyone at Garden," Laguna said. "I asked about you."

Selphie sat up, spinning around and dangling her legs off the edge of the balcony. 

"I... it's..." She sighed, then turned to look at Laguna. She held his gaze for a moment, then looked away again. "It's hard to say."

"Selphie," he reached and took her hand. "Whatever you tell me stays right here. You have my word on it."

She nodded, then took a deep breath, staring off into the distance, unable to meet Laguna's gaze. "Before Squall went... to sleep, he and I started... seeing each other. We didn't kiss or anything. But... almost. I wanted to kiss him, but I was relieved when we didn't. I have the feeling that if he hadn't fallen asleep, things might have gone farther. And I'm not so sure I'd mind that."

"And you feel bad because you care for Irvine."

"I do!" she exclaimed. "Irvine's the greatest. He's wonderful and considerate, and he knows what I need before I even think about it..." Her voice trailed off into the void between the buildings.

"But?"

"But... Squall's something else. He's dark and intense and passionate, even though he tries to hide it. There's a fire burning within him, and... he gives you the sense that it's just _barely under control. And his smile! He never smiles, so when he does, and he smiles at _you, _it just makes you melt. I'd do anything to see that smile now."_

She stood up and took a few steps back. Laguna had the sudden, horrible sensation that she planned to hurl herself off the edge of the building. Instead, she started to pace.

"And Squall gets it. He totally gets it. Whenever I look at him, I can see a corner of his brain working, planning how to get Mallis, how to take back what we lost, how to avenge... everything."

She crossed to Laguna, kneeling down beside him.

"And there's more. When he talks about it, when I hear his voice, when I see that storm in his eyes, I know."

"Know?"

"It's not enough to take back Garden. It's not enough to kill Mallis. Squall wants to make him _suffer_." She stood up again, pacing, her body trying to keep pace with her words.

"He wants to hurt Mallis. He wants to make Mallis bleed, to make him die, slowly, by inches. The way we've been dying since that day. It scares Squall, and he'd never admit it, even to himself, but he _likes _it. He thinks of all the things we've learned, all the little tricks you pick up in this business. You learn to kill people, sure, but you also learn to _hurt _them. To make it slow and agonizing. To take their life in your hands and make them _beg _for death. That's what Mallis deserves, it's what he's earned, and Squall's going to see that he gets paid. In full."

"And Irvine?" Laguna's years as a journalist served him well. Selphie had found her rhythm. Laguna's questions served only to prompt her words, to give her an excuse to voice her feelings.

"Irvine... Irvine wants to get back Garden, but that's it. I mean, sure, he'd like to see Mallis dead. He'd even like to deliver the bullet himself. But, if Mallis escaped, I think Irvine would be okay with that. Killing Mallis, capturing him, that's just not enough. I want to hear him _scream. I get it. Squall gets it. Irvine doesn't."_

"So you and Squall share your pain."

"Exactly. He relives every moment of that day. Every fight, every battle, every death. He works it over in his mind, tries to figure out where he went wrong. He'll never show it, but it tore him up inside. It ripped his heart out when he sounded the retreat. It crushed him when he left all those people behind. And a part of him died when Mallis killed the junior cadets, just like a part of me died... Just like a part of me dies every time I close my eyes and see the whole thing happen again."

She paused, her breath coming in gasps. Laguna stood up and went to her, placing his hands on her shoulders, and looking in her eyes.

"I can't help you with any of this, Selphie," he said, shaking his head. "All I can do is give you the tools I think will help you make up your mind. But to do that, I need you to listen to me. Really listen. You have to promise that you'll take what I say and _think _about it, okay? You don't need to react, or tell me your decisions, or anything else. All you have to do is _think _about what I say. Deal?"

She nodded. He removed his hands, walking away and putting them in his pockets.

"I can't take a position on whether you should be with Squall and Irvine. They're both great guys, but I must admit to a personal bias." He turned his head back and grinned a little.

"I think you've already made up your mind. I think you know what you want _here_," he tapped a finger on her heart, "but that's in conflict with what you want _here," and he tapped her on the forehead. "You need to decide which is which._

"You need to think about what each man means to you. Why you care so much for each of them. What you really feel for them, and if what you feel is what you _think you feel. You need to put a real name to your feelings. And 'love' won't do it. That's a cop-out. I 'love' you, and I 'love' Ellone, and I 'love' Raine. It's the same word, but they're vastly different emotions."_

"You mean like how Zell 'loves' hotdogs, and 'loves' Seifer?" she quipped.

Laguna smiled, but turned serious again. "Exactly. You need to distinguish between friends, lovers, comrades. You need to figure out who you want to have what role in your life, and go from there. This leads into my second, broader point."

"Which is?"

Laguna put an arm around Selphie's shoulder and guided her to the edge of the balcony. They stood, looking over the shining crystal city for a long moment before he spoke again, his voice hushed.

"Look at it. The largest, most advanced, most powerful, most wealthy country in the world. And it's mine. Mine to have for as long as I'll have it.

"It took me a lifetime of regrets to get here. I never really knew my first love, and she died before I could tell her what she meant to me. I feel that pain every time I see Rinoa's face. I missed the birth of my son – hell, his entire life. I feel that pain every time I hear that smooth distance in Squall's voice. I missed... I wasn't there for Raine when I should have been. I feel that pain every moment of every day.

"I've seen treachery, betrayal, cruelty, horror, and more deaths than I can count. I have had my fill of pain, and, since I don't plan on dying anytime soon, I will have a lot more.

"But it hasn't all been bad. I have my son now, and we're learning to make up for lost time. I have Ellone, and we take care of each other. I have Kiros and Ward, the best friends anyone could want. I have adoring fans," he turned and winked at Selphie, "and a crowd of people who are willing to work with me to make the world a better place. I have a legacy of peace and prosperity that will hopefully outlive me. I have more money than I could ever spend in a dozen lifetimes. I have a nation of trusting citizens, looking to me to improve their lives. I have memories of joy, laughter, sunlight, beauty, music... all the good things this world has to offer."

He extended his left arm, turning his hand so his wedding band winked in the light. His voice, when he spoke, caught in his throat.

"And I have Raine, who is with me every moment of every day.

"I have all this, and do you know how I got it?"

He waited, looking at Selphie, who shook her head. He turned, and took her by the shoulders again.

"I never did anything by halves. I found my path and saw it through. I never hedged my bets, never rode the fence, never changed horses in midstream. _That's_ my secret. If I do something, I do it one hundred percent or not at all."

He released her, and shrugged.

"And that's it. That's all I can tell you. I hate to say it," he grinned, "but now I've taught you everything I know."

"You've said more than enough," she smiled, reaching towards him and pulling Laguna into a great hug. "You've given me a lot to think about. Thanks, Sir Laguna."

"Sure thing, Selly-belly," he said, patting her on the back of the head. "Now you'd better head home. It's getting late."

She pulled away and started for the door.

"Thanks again," she said.

"Not a problem," he replied. "Think about what I said."

"I will."

* *

She thought.

She thought all the way to Esthar Garden.

She thought about Quistis, and her real motivations for sending Selphie on this "mission."

She thought about Sir Laguna, and how he never once misspoke or mixed his metaphors.

She thought she'd never seen a better actor.

But mostly, she thought.

* *

She opened the door to find Irvine sprawled out on her bed, the television set running.

"Hey, babe," he said, sitting up and flipping the TV off with the remote. "Zell, uh, decided to 'repair' my TV, so I thought I'd borrow yours while mine's out of commission."

"Mmm-hmm," she smiled, closing the door behind her. She felt clear, lightheaded, as she glided across the room.

"Well," he shrugged, standing up, "I'll get going. See you tomorrow."

"Wait," she said, crossing over to him. She pulled him close and held him in a long hug. He wrapped his arms around her and rested his chin on the top of her head.

Selphie took a step back. She took one of his hands in one of hers, placing it over her heart and looking long into his eyes. Her other hand reached around and started to unzip her uniform jacket.

"Stay."


	16. Don't Look Down

"Idiot!"

Zell paused outside the door, keycard in hand.

"Moron!"

He took a deep breath, preparing himself to open the door.

Zell opened the door to find his worst fears confirmed: Seifer 'watching' TV.  In this case, 'watching' meant clutching the remote in one hand and flipping channels faster than the eye could follow while pacing, ranting, and gesticulating like a spider monkey on speed.

The television rested on a home shopping channel for a half-second, as a woman showed off an ugly piece of jewelry.

Seifer muttered incomprehensibly, jabbing the remote control in the direction of the TV.

The channel flicked to a quiz show for an instant.  Zell didn't have time to read the question printed on the screen.

"1846!" Seifer yelled, changing the channel again.

This time, the TV landed on a fishing program.  Seifer roared in rage, not even forming words.

Zell stood in the doorway, watching Seifer in his rage.  In an instant, Seifer noticed the martial artist standing there and whirled on him.  Zell felt like Seifer could attack at any moment.

"Hi," he said.

Seifer's face fell and his shoulders slumped.

"Hi, Zell," he replied.

"Fujin, huh?" Zell asked.

Seifer's face hardened again and he resumed pacing one more, arms flailing as he spoke.

"Of course it's Fujin!  He's got her, he's got all of them, and we're just supposed to sit here with our thumbs up our asses and take it?  How long are we going to wait for Squall to come out of the damn coma?"

He paused by the windows, slumping once more.

"We were almost out.  The ship was right there.  We almost made it.  I could have saved her, and then..."

"Seifer, don't—"

"No!" he slammed his fist on the windowsill, and the glass trembled in protest.  "I could have saved her, and then I stopped.  Why did I stop?"  He turned on Zell.  "You made me stop.  You and Quistis.  I could have saved her and you stopped me."

"We were only doing—"

"You stopped me and now I'll never see her again.  She's dead or in chains now, and I could have saved her!  And instead of making things right, I'm here, thinking about what I should have done."

"You can't—"

"I was supposed to protect her!  I was supposed to look out for her.  We were a posse, a team, and I deserted her when it mattered the most."

"Stop!" Zell commanded.  Seifer's eyes filled with fury and his hands clenched into fists.  "Sit down."

"Don't start with me," Seifer hissed.

"Sit down!" Zell shouted, his voice echoing off the walls of their room.

Seifer nodded, mute, and plopped down on the floor without protest.  Zell walked over and sat on the floor facing him.  

"There's nothing we can do right now, nothing that wouldn't get us killed in the process.  We're no good to Fujin dead."

"But we can't just sit here—"

"What do you want?"  Zell asked.  "You want to fight someone?  Let's go to the training center and kick the crap out of each other.  Will that make you feel better?  Will that get Fujin back?"

Seifer shook his head.

"Will shouting at the TV help anything?  Or pounding on the walls?"

Seifer shook his head again, looking more like a sullen child than a trained mercenary.

"Believe me, Seifer.  I want to get Fujin back.  I know how much she means to you.  For years, she was all you had and you were all she had.  You two depended on each other, and I know how much it hurts.  I hurt for you.  When I see you like this, it pisses me off that there's nothing we can do about it.  I hate seeing you hurt like this."

Zell reached out and took Seifer hand, intertwining their fingers.

"But I'd hate it more if you got killed.  And Fujin would too.  You know as well as I do that she wouldn't want you to risk your life for her.  She knows the job.  She knows the risks.  And she knew what she was doing when she threw herself at the guards.  She knew exactly what she was doing.  And she did it for you.  So you could get away, so you would survive, and so you would be able to rescue her.  When the time is right."

Seifer opened his mouth to argue, but Zell silenced him.

"You can't do this half-assed.  You can't rescue her by running off into the night.  It's stupid, and you'll get yourself killed.  And _then__ who would rescue her?  She needs you, Seifer, she needs you to save her.  But to do that, you have to be alive.  Understand?"_

Seifer nodded.

"So I want you to promise me: no crazy schemes, no half-formed plans, no suicide missions.  No blackmailing Nida to fly you to Garden in the dead of night.  Okay?"

Seifer nodded again.

"Promise."

"I promise, Zell," Seifer said, leaning in and sealing the promise with a kiss.

Zell smiled as he pulled away.

"I have an early morning tomorrow, so I'm going to bed," he said, rising to his feet.

"I'm pretty tired, too," Seifer said, standing as well.  "All this ranting takes a lot out of me."

"Not too much, I hope," Zell winked.

Seifer gave Zell a brisk push on the chest, sending the shorter man sprawling on the bed.

"You wish, Chicken-Wuss."

*          *

Seifer waited until Zell's breathing took on the regular rhythm of sleep.  He listened to the fighter breathing for a long moment, and then stood up, moving soundlessly across the floor as he dressed.

He opened the door just wide enough to slide through, and then glanced back at Zell, still curled up in bed.

"Sorry, Zell," he whispered.

Zell smiled to himself, somewhat sad and somewhat satisfied as his lover closed the door. Zell's heart lurched a little in fear.

"Come back safe," he whispered in response.

*          *

He flew.  Sometimes lazy eights, sometimes death-defying barrel rolls.  He darted between clouds and hedgehopped over city streets.  Birds scattered to get out of his way and pedestrians shook their fists in envy-tainted-anger.

He looked over at his co-pilot, his father, who smiled, giving him the thumbs-up.  Nida grinned in response and punched the engine, swooping into an Immelmann.  He pulled back hard, causing the ship to dart into the sky.  Nida felt the pressure of gravity tugging at him, angered by his defiance.

They leveled off and Nida turned to his father once more.  "Watch this," he said, savoring his father's barely-contained fear, as the ship started a horrific descent.  "Someday, they'll be calling this the 'Nomura Drop.'"

Then, the ship exploded.

Three blasts, each sounding like the crack of doom rocketed through the ship.  They plummeted, not with the perfect control of the Nomura Drop, but a wild, unplanned dive.  The ground rushed up at them and Nida envisioned, for a moment, the spirits of gravity taking their revenge.

He sat bolt upright in bed, panting in terror, the dream ended.  But the explosions remained, echoing through his foggy skull.

It took Nida a moment to pinpoint the origin of the sound: the door.  Someone pounding on his door, the sound vicious and insistent.

"I'm coming, I'm coming," he mumbled staggering to his feet.  He pulled on some pants and a t-shirt and punched the button to open the door.

A hand lanced through the opening and seized him by the collar.  He had an instant to recognize Seifer's face, and then he felt himself pulled down the hallway, powerless to resist.

Seifer ignored Nida's protestations and questions until they reached the hanger.  They entered the massive room and Seifer released the pilot, pointing to the _Ragnarok_.

"Fly," he commanded.

"Seifer, what the hell is going on here?  You wake me up out of a sound sleep – and a very nice dream, I might add – only to drag me here in the middle of the night and—"

"Fly," Seifer ordered again.

"No!" Nida exclaimed.  "Not until you give me some answers!"

Seifer grabbed Nida by the collar once more and pulled him close, close enough to feel Seifer's hot breath.  Nida couldn't help but noticing the threat implicit in the gesture.

"You owe her, damn it, you owe her," he snarled.

"What?  Who?"  Nida didn't fight Seifer's grasp.  He knew he couldn't get away, and while he didn't think Seifer meant him any harm, Nida hadn't seen the blond this hostile in years.  It reminded him of the Seifer who ran the Disciplinary Committee, punishing all those who annoyed him.  And yet, something seemed more calculated about Seifer's rage, more focused.

"When we were on that survival hike in Trabia, you drank all your water early on in the day.  Six miles to go, all of it uphill, and who shared her canteen with you?  You wouldn't have passed if she hadn't done that.  You would have had to drop out."

Now, Nida understood.  "Fujin," he whispered.

"You owe her," Seifer said again.  "And I'm here to collect on the debt."  He released Nida, but did not step back.  "Now fly."

Nida nodded.  "_Ragnarok_ is too conspicuous.  They'd notice it missing and call in Laguna's fleet.  They'd be all over us before we even left the continent."

"That's a problem, isn't it?" Seifer growled.

"Hey, no worries," Nida said, putting up his hands and taking a step back.  "We'll just take the _Discovery."_

Seifer balked.  "Huh?"

"Have you forgotten?" Nida asked.  He gestured over to a corner of the hanger where the ship recovered from Videlic Arms sat.  "The _Discovery."_

"It works?"

"Zell and Irvine and I have been working on it.  Flies like a dream."

"No 'bugs' this time?"

Nida shrugged, then turned away and started strolling towards the ship.  "What's the worst that can happen?" he called over his shoulder.  "We lose power over the ocean and die horrible, screaming deaths or get shot down by the _Apocalypse."  He stopped walking and turned back to Seifer, his eyes glittering._

"But that's what makes it _interesting."_

AN:  Two chapters in two days!  What can I say – Seifer gets _impatient._


	17. Kriegspiel

She sat in silence, listening, watching, a faint smile tracing across her lips.

Mallis used Squall's office as his base of operations, and Scarlet seized Quistis's office and dorm room for her own.  She liked it here, it gave her a sense of her adversary.  For all she'd read about Quistis, all the time she'd spent studying the dossier, nothing drove home Quistis's nature like seeing her personal space.

Quistis found her career as a SeeD lucrative, and made good use of the material rewards.  She'd surrounded herself with expensive things, but did not flaunt her wealth.  It would take the eye of a connoisseur to see the value in Quistis's possessions.  Their value did not seem to appeal to Quistis, though.  Expensive masterworks of art shared space with valueless prints.  She seemed driven more to acquire things that pleased her senses than to buy things for their inherent worth.

Books, above all, dominated the woman's life.  Her office had books stacked in every available space.  They sat arranged in a perplexing order, without regard to alphabet or subject matter.  Scarlet sensed the existence of an underlying pattern, but its precise nature eluded her.  Scarlet imagined that abandoning her library in the invasion had torn Quistis apart.  

"Enter," Scarlet said, responding to a sudden knock on the door.

Biggs and Wedge slid through, worried.

"Yes, what is it?" she prompted.

"We... there's an—" Wedge started.

Scarlet cut him off.  "Intruder, I know."

"Um, yes.  It's—"

"Al-ma-sy," she said, letting the word roll off her tongue, savoring each syllable.

"How did you know?" Biggs asked.

"Statistical inevitability.  He was bound to come sooner or later.  I'm surprised he held off this long, actually," she shrugged.  Biggs and Wedge looked blank.  "It's all in his file.  He thinks of himself as a Knight.  He has... a compulsion to play the hero.  He wanted to save Fujin the day of the invasion and they stopped him.  He was bound to try again."

"Should we call the General?" asked Wedge.

"No.  He's en route to Dollet, and we're under standing orders not to contact him while he's traveling."

"So what do we do?"

Scarlet rose, shaking out her hair as she did so.

"Biggs, Wedge, wait here.  Watch the computer.  When the General arrives, the team in Dollet will notify us.  Then – and only then – you may call him.  Give the reference code 113-SA.  That will prompt him to further action."

"Should I mobilize the rest of the security forces?" asked Wedge.

"No," Scarlet replied.  "We couldn't trap him if we tried.  He grew up here, spent his childhood exploring the tunnels and warrens.  He knows every inch of this place."  She thought for a long moment.  "You won't be able to stop him with numbers.  The more you throw at him, the more he'll kill.  But there's a way."

Scarlet's mouth twisted into its predatory smile, and Biggs shuddered.

*          *

Seifer crossed through the secret area and into the main body of the training center, ever vigilant for signs of danger.  The center – the sole twenty-four hour facility in Balamb Garden – lay dark, unused.  And something else disturbed him.

He waited, listened for the rustling sounds of grats on the move, or even the thunderous footfall of a T-Rexaur, but... nothing.  Utter silence.  Mallis had the training center cleared, every creature inside slaughtered.  Still, Seifer kept his movements quiet and stayed far from the main paths, limiting his route to the darkest shadows.

As he neared the exit of the training center, his ears perked up: the whir of security cameras.  An insulting challenge – he'd memorized the location and coverage of every camera in the building before his thirteenth birthday.  Still, better to err on the side of caution.  Seifer didn't proceed until he'd seen every camera and affirmed its position.

He slid into the darkened main concourse with a grace born of a thousand midnight escapes.  He checked every side and dashed across to the central spire, plunging into the small stream with the barest splash.  While the water never exceeded ankle height in most places, Seifer knew the location of a small access port.

He flipped open a switchblade and used it to pry up the lid, as the water poured down into the room beneath.  The port only saw use when the stream stopped running, but Seifer had made use of it in the past.  He grabbed the lid and brought it down with him, snapping it into place from beneath.

Garden's designers had not constructed the tunnel with Seifer in mind.  Standing at his full height, his head brushed the ceiling, so moving at a crouch, he proceeded into the labyrinth.

His memory served him well, and a moment he reached another access port.  This time, he used his switchblade as a screwdriver, eliminating the screws with cool efficiency.  He set the panel aside and eased into the corridor beyond.

The elevator shaft stretched above him.  He pressed the button next to him, summoning the elevator.  In descended and Seifer entered, knowing the most exposed part of his journey stretched ahead of him.

He needed to get to his office on the third floor.  However, before the assault on Garden, Mallis had his office on the third floor.  And the security matrix indicated that someone made regular use of Squall's office since the assault – that sounded like Mallis.  So Seifer's instinct for danger told him to avoid the third floor as much as possible.  The second, then.  To do that, he'd have to send an empty elevator to the third.

He stepped into the elevator and pressed the button for the third floor, setting to work at once on opening the floor panel of the elevator car.  As it opened he attached a cable to his legs, and fixed the other end to the underside of the elevator car.  Without hesitating, he jumped through the opening, hanging upside down from the elevator car.

The elevator stopped, and Seifer lowered himself to the opening at the second floor.  Still inverted, he opened the security panel next to the door at set to work rewiring it.  A small chime from above him indicated that the elevator doors had closed.  The car would soon resume motion and return to ground level.

"If Squall can do it from a moving train, I can do this," he muttered.

The doors on the second floor opened.  Seifer shoved off the opposite wall and released his cable at the height of his swing, rolling through the doors as the elevator car slid past.

He moved through the classroom wing, finding it – as he'd hoped – deserted.  He headed for the end of the hallway, ascending the stairs to the exposed terrace.

The fresh air made for a welcome change from the confines of the tunnels and the elevator shaft.  Seifer's eyes ran up the building to the window of his office on the third floor.

Overcome with a brief attack of common sense, he sighed.  "I was a lot younger the last time I did this," he murmured.

Pushing his doubts aside, he climbed onto the narrow railing and pulled himself up onto the face of Garden.

His hands scrabbled for purchase – if he'd brought his cord, he could have used it to ensure he wouldn't fall, but he'd left it on the elevator.  He found an irregularity in the surface and dug in his fingers.

He reached up, his left hand looking for another handhold.  He found one, and pulled himself up a little more.

Seifer glanced again at his window, now a few inches closer to him.  He smiled.

*          *

She looked across the floor of the Dark to where he sat.

No, not _he, she corrected herself.  __It._

"It's time," she called out.

No response.

"Did you hear me?" she called again, annoyed at its failure to reply.

From the darkness, a lone green light swiveled to look at her.

Scarlet nodded, pleased.

*          *

Seifer hazarded a quick glance in his office as he crawled past.  He noted with disapproval that Mallis had only stationed one guard inside, and resolved to demonstrate the true value of the buddy system.

He passed his window and moved above it.  With the tip of his steel-toed boot, he kicked the side of the building, creating a noise audible inside the office.  He waited, then kicked again.

  
It worked this time, as the guard inside came, opened the window to check it, and leaned outside.

Seifer kicked downwards with all his force, causing the man to go tumbling to the ground.  This done, he found it an easy task to slip back into his office.  He pulled out the keyboard of the security station and started typing.

*          *

Selphie arrived to find the Intelligence section a flurry of activity.  She liked to see her people working hard, but they'd awakened her from a pleasant sleep, one of the first she'd enjoyed since the fall of Balamb Garden.  It worried her.

"What's going on?" she asked.

Eva, Seifer's chief aide in the Security department, answered her.

"A few minutes ago, we started receiving a transmission from an encrypted source.  I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't seen it myself, but..."  Eva, not a timid woman, seemed at a loss for words.

"But?" Selphie prompted.

"It's from Balamb Garden," Eva said.

"You're sure?"

She nodded.

"What does it say?"

Eva pressed the note into Selphie's hands.

_Stand by to receive transmission.  Have breakfast waiting for me.  Make extra – I won't be alone.  30127._

"30127," Selphie murmured, her mind rolling through the list of SeeDs and their code numbers.  "That's... Seifer."  Her eyes flew open.

Eva nodded again.

Just then, the monitors in the room lit up, showing feeds from every security camera in Balamb Garden.

Selphie started for the door.  "I'm going to get Quistis."

*          *

He sees her across the cavernous room known as the Dark.  His eyes should not see that far, but they do.  He expected to see the blue coat men, but he does not.  They do not come to torment him now.  They fear him, and they have left.  She does not fear him.  He does not know how he knows this, but he knows.

She glows red at first, then green, like night vision. She moves closer and he seems to recognize her.

"Do you know who I am?"

He stares at her, remembering.

His voice sounds strange when he speaks.  Metallic, somehow.  Amplified.

"In... Instructor?"

**ERR**

**Cross referencing with available profiles...**

**Identified:  Scarlet**

**Aide to Varrant; superior officer**

**Obey all commands**

**Obey all commands**

**Obey all**

**Break**

It hurts him, like shouting inside his skull.  She smiles, and that hurts him too.

"Ah.  That would be one of your... improvements.  I suggest you get used to it.  Now, do you know who – _what – you are?"_

An easy question.  A safe question.

"SeeD Cadet McMurdo." 

**ERR 983**

**Unacceptable Designation**

**Acceptable Designations = Varrant-Videlic Weapon/Armor Replicant: Mechanized; WarMech**

It hurts him again.  He can't escape the voice.

"I am told you know what to do in case of an invasion?"

He blinks, and then the voice reminds him.

**"Invasion.prg" loading...**

**Objective$ = "Fujin"; "Heartilly"; "Trepe"**

**Locate Objective$**

**Secure Objective$**

**Target$ = "Leonhart"; "Almasy"; "Kinneas"; "Dincht"; "Tilmitt"**

**Locate Target$**

**Cancel Target$**

It doesn't hurt this time.  Her smile makes him happy.

He smiles too.  He knows his place, knows his role.  They have hurt him, they have hurt his masters, and he must hurt them.

Let them tremble.


	18. Un Bel di Verdremo

Quistis stormed into the Intelligence room with Selphie and Xu close behind.  Xu immediately sat down at a computer and started working, deciphering the transmissions for herself.  As SeeD's top cryptanalyst, if someone had made a mistake, she'd find it.

"Tell me this isn't going on," Quistis said.

"It is," Xu confirmed.  "I just went over the transmission.  What you see is live footage, broadcast from Balamb Garden.  Seifer went and opened the feed."

Quistis scowled.

"I keep waiting for him to step into the camera," Eva said, "but-"

"He won't," Quistis interrupted.  "He's too good for that.  All we can do is wait until he decides to show his face."

"I wonder if Zell knows?" Selphie mused.

A fire blazed in Quistis's eye.

"Get him," she ordered, looking at Eva.  "Now."

*          *

He feels he could crush them all at once, but she restrains him with her words.

"Almasy is in the building.  He'll go to the detention center and, if I'm not mistaken, emerge at the main concourse, which is where you'll seize him."

He nods.  Something whirs as he does so, the humming of motors.

*          *

The door slid open as Eva entered.  Zell followed her, detached somehow, at once present and absent from the proceedings.  He seemed unconcerned, disinterested at the forcible summons in the middle of the night, and Quistis knew, in that instant, that his thoughts rested elsewhere.  Balamb Garden.

He shrugged.  "Let's have it."

Quistis gestured to the monitors, but Zell didn't bother to look.  He held her gaze and she saw in his eyes a mixture of Squall's dispassion and Seifer's disdain.  She could yell at him, shout at him, strip him of his rank, threaten court martial.  None of it would matter.  Nothing in this room mattered to him, except in the most abstract sense.

She handed him the message.  He glanced at it for the instant it took to see Seifer's number at the end, then looked back to her.

"You did this."  Statement, not question.  

"You know better than that," he replied.  She'd never heard Zell's voice so cold.

"You knew."

"Of course."

"And you didn't-" Selphie blurted.

He stared.  "Didn't what?  Try to stop him?"

She nodded.

"Could you have stopped him?"  He turned to Eva.  "Could you?"  His eyes swung back to Quistis.  "You might have, but you would have had to kill him."

"You should have told someone," Xu said.

"What would you have done?"  Zell spread his hands.  "Locked him in the detention center?  Told him to consider the wisdom of his actions?  Threatened him?  Tried to talk him out of it?"  Zell laughed, the sound unpleasant.

Quistis folded her arms over her chest.  "This is serious."

"You think I don't know that?" he snapped.  "Do you anyone is more aware of that than I am?  He'd already made up his mind.  What was I supposed to do?"

"Fine.  What do you suggest we do now?" she asked.

"I suggest we let Seifer do his job.  He's spent his entire life doing things that should have been impossible, and I suggest we recognize that fact and get the hell out of his way.  He'll come back, Fujin in tow, with the first solid intelligence we've had since the fall of Garden."

"And if he doesn't come back?"

Zell's face hardened.  "If he doesn't come back, it means we're fighting a war we have no chance of winning."  Zell swallowed.

*          *

"Party's over, Squall," she sighed into the empty room, looking over at her fallen Knight.

Rinoa entered the infirmary room, the wine-colored silk of her gown rustling as she moved.

"It went really well.  Ambassador Shackleton was falling all over himself to thank me."

She paused, then, smiling: "You should have seen your father.  He had his shirt untucked and his bowtie undone before he even reached the embassy.  Kiros said Laguna can't last more than five minutes in formalwear.

"It was really nice.  I wish... you could've been there."

She stood at his bedside a moment, and felt heavy with the weight of his absence.  Ever since her apotheosis -- that wonderful, horrible, strange moment when she became a Sorceress - she'd _felt_ Squall.  In their first hug aboard the _Ragnarok_, something passed between them, and she'd had an awareness of Squall, a feeling of his presence with her.  In that instant, he took up the mantle as her Knight, and she'd never felt alone since then.

Until now.

When Squall first fell into his sleep, she didn't notice it, but the sensation had grown with every passing day.  Now, it _hurt_.  She felt as if she'd lost a piece of herself.

Rinoa sat down in the chair next to Squall's bed and glanced over at him, sighing again.  Her helplessness pained her.  She'd cared for Squall before - not that he needed it - when he came back to Garden with the inevitable injuries.  This time, though, she couldn't do anything for him.  Just watch and hope. 

She peeled off her opera gloves, folding them and placing them on the small table.  She removed her shoes and stood up, climbing into the bed with Squall.  She wrapped one of his arms around her and listened to his heartbeat, regular but distant.

Rinoa closed her eyes, trying to imagine herself back in their shared room or in a hotel somewhere - anywhere, in short, but a hospital bed in the Infirmary.

"Come back, Squall," she murmured.  "I need you."

Soon enough, she had fallen asleep.

*          *

"Hey, pretty lady."

Fujin jumped, almost falling off her bed in the process.  For a moment, she thought the detention center, with its unrelenting white, had cracked her.  She'd heard a voice in the otherwise empty room.  Not just any voice, either.  _His._

"Calm down," came the voice again.  "It's me."

"SEIFER?" she whispered.  "WHERE?"

"Up here, of course."

She glanced up to the ceiling, her eye searching out the sound of his voice: the air duct, a good twenty feet off the floor.  

"I'll be right down," he said.  "You need to catch the grille as it drops, though."

"UNDERSTOOD," Fujin replied, moving into place beneath the duct.

She heard a clunk, loud, but not audible outside the cell.  Then another one, and the grille fell out of its place.  Fujin caught it and looked up - the shaft extended upward vertically for a good fifteen feet.  It seemed impossibly narrow as Seifer slid down it, feet first.  He landed on the ground, hard, and Fujin went to him, sweeping him up in a hug.

"Careful," he said, wincing.

She stepped back.  "WHAT?"

Seifer closed his eyes and gritted his teeth.  He took a deep breath and his arms jerked as he wrenched them back into their sockets.  When he opened his eyes, the pain had him on the verge of tears.

"Of all my escape routes, that was my least favorite," he explained, rotating his arms in an effort to restore their motion.  "Climb the wall, remove the grille, hold it in my teeth, dislocate my shoulders, put it back into place, and wriggle my way through the ducts.  I can think of more fun ways to escape."

"LIKE?"

Seifer grinned and pressed something on his belt.  The door to the room slid open, and Fujin stared.

"The front door, perhaps?"  

"HOW?"

He dangled something in front of Fujin's face.

"I happened to be on the third floor, so I stopped by and picked up Xu's spare handlink."

"PLAN?"

"The elevator's little better than a fishbowl, so I want to steer clear of it.  We go through the warrens to where they open into the library storeroom.  The whole library is unguarded, so we come out there, take a quick jog through the main concourse, and hit the parking garage."

"EASY."

He shrugged, the gesture making him wince again.  "It lacks my usual panache, but it'll do."

*          *

He hears them before they arrive.  She has not miscalculated, and they appear at the main concourse, coming out of the library.

His other brain buzzes - he has grown accustomed to the sound, and it no longer hurts him, except when it says "Err."  It chatters constantly, giving him feedback on the temperature of the surrounding area, the condition of his own body, and a host of other trivia.  When he stares at her for too long, he can see her heat rise, the flush moving into her cheeks as she chides him.  He can see minute signs of stress in the walls, he can see the air currents moving through rooms.  He hears the thud of her heart, its pace increasing as she anticipates the coming battle.

A memory from his past flits through his mind, a memory from his old life.  It lives in the soft, fleshy part of his brain, but soon enough, the comforting assurance of his new mind takes over.  The old words escape him, but the new words wash over him with a pleasant chill.

**SeeD Protocols: §14(1)(a):**

**Knowledge = Power**

"Knowledge is power," he murmurs.  "And I am a god."

He sees them.

**Cross referencing with available profiles...**

**Target Identified: Almasy**

**Renegade SeeD**

**Head of Security Department.  Gunblade specialist.**

**Expert Level Proficiencies: Traps, Escapology, Improvised Weaponry, History...**

**High-Level Proficiencies: Demolition, Psychology, Martial Arts, Medicine...**

**Assume all other proficiencies at normal SeeD level or above**

**Confirmed enemy**

**Extremely dangerous.  Approach with caution.  Use extreme force.**

**Cancel target**

**Objective Identified: Fujin**

**Renegade SeeD**

**Psychological Operations.  Chakram specialist.**

**Expert Level Proficiencies: Psychology, Interrogation, Criminology, Forensics...**

**High Level Proficiencies:  Writing, Literature, Sign Language, Martial Arts...**

**Assume all other proficiencies at normal level or above**

**Confirmed target**

**Extremely dangerous.  Approach with caution.  Apprehend with minimal force.**

**Secure target at all costs.**

**"Weapons.prg" loading...**

He wants to hurt her.  He remembers the hours spent suffering at Fujin's hands.  He remembers the blood, the pain.  It will take force to subdue her, and this pleases him.

They do not look at him, though.  He wants to see them shudder, wants to see the shift in their body temperatures as the fear bathes them.  He looks forward to seeing blood, watching the gentle shift in colors as it cools to room temperature.

They look past him, to Scarlet.  He knows what they see.  The same resemblance that confused him in his first waking moments, that strange likeness that made his brain say "Err."  Seifer's mouth hangs open, speechless.

Fujin, though, manages a word.

"QUISTIS?"

*          *

The sound of her warhorse's hooves hung heavy in the air.  She rode across a vast, empty plain, long since devoid of life.  She had the sensation that she'd ridden for quite some time, yet Rinoa did not feel tired.  She had no destination in mind, but felt drawn forward.  The device on her shield spoke volumes to her purpose: a winged lion sejant - sitting - before a swan rising.

Soon enough, she saw her goal - a wide field of flowers, one that she would recognize anywhere.  It never failed to amaze her, seeing so much life in the middle of so much devastation.  The Lunar Cry destroyed the Centra continent eighty years ago, and the field of flowers seemed out of context in such a dead place.

The field rippled and shimmered with life under the morning sun.  The breeze made her azure cape rustle, the snowy-white wings embroidered on the back moving with it.  After the cracked and blasted wasteland that made up Centra, the explosion of flowers delighted her: reds and yellows, purples and oranges, all mixed without regard.  Butterflies of every description played among them, and Rinoa felt like a giant, an armored intruder trespassing in their kingdom.

She felt Squall.  The pull came to her, faint and fragile, but _present_.

They'd made a promise here, once.  That they would always find each other here, that if something separated them, they would return to the flowers and find each other.  It saved Squall from Time Compression, and so it seemed natural that they would return in dreams.

Either she had entered his dreams, or he had entered hers.  Or, perhaps, they inhabited some shared reality, created from their distinctive bond.  Rinoa didn't care.  She'd found Squall, and now she'd bring him back.

The orphanage rose on the horizon, but something struck her as wrong.  The building loomed too large, too enormous.  She recognized the original structure, but as her eyes roamed over it, she noticed a host of changes: towers and battlements, a moat and portcullis.

The orphanage, made perfect in the mind of a SeeD.  A childhood residence converted into a fortress.

When she had drawn near enough, Rinoa dismounted, burnished armor dazzling in the sunlight.  She cringed at her first few steps, loathe to trample the flowers.  She looked back, though, to see them springing back into place.  She smiled, and continued walking towards the fortress.

It had a moat, yes, but no drawbridge.  An expanse of running water separated Rinoa from her goal.

She closed her eyes and dug inside herself, searching for the magic.  It usually came unbidden, in moments of desperation, but she'd spent time, by herself, working to master it.  Somewhere inside her, beyond all the parts that made up Rinoa, lived something More-Than-Rinoa.  Some connection to a greater whole - not just to her Knight, but to the Sorcerers and Sorceresses that came before, dating all the way back to Hyne.  She had fleeting memories, impressions, glimpses of a thousand past lives.  Something in her remembered forging the world from the stuff of pure chaos, of shaping entire continents using nothing but the force of her will.

She found that, and she _tugged._

Rinoa's cape melted away as her wings manifested.  They grew from her back, yet somehow passed through her armor.  They stretched, once, and she ascended into the sky.

She had never flown before, but that dim, ancient part of her remembered riding the breeze eons before the birth of land.  It remembered when the flowers beneath her existed as mere potential, and when the stones of the fortress existed as mountains buried beneath a roiling sea.

She climbed in slow circles, rising up towards the highest tower of the fortress.  She swept through the window and landed on the floor, kneeling.

As she rose, she looked around the room, finding it barren, except for Squall and a mirror.  He looked - not looked, _stared_ - into the mirror, with infinite pain in his eyes.  She'd seen that pain before, knew what thoughts claimed his mind when he had that look.  She stood over his shoulder and gazed into the mirror with him.

War.  Blood.  Destruction.  Homes shattered, lives ended.  Treachery and betrayal.  Hatred and pain.  And presiding over it all, a man with a face like a skull, one eye burning with insanity, the other a morass of endless night.

"Squall," she breathed.  Rinoa wrapped her arms around him, her wings enfolding them both in a cocoon of white feathers.  

"It's okay, Squall.  I'm here."

Still, he stared.  She'd blocked the mirror from his view, but still he stared.  She released him and turned to the mirror, with its cascading madness.

Anger welled up within her, and the magic rose easily this time, responding to her rage.  That primeval part of her consciousness saw the mirror for its component parts, remembered back to a time before its existence.  Rinoa's will lashed outward and _unmade _the mirror.

It shimmered and rippled, beads of mercury running down the walls.  Tin crumpled and folded, shaping itself back to a hunk of formless rock.  The glass shattered into fragments, and the fragments shattered as they fell to the ground, reverting into a pile of sand.

"See, Squall?" she implored.  "It's not real.  It's just a memory.  It can't hurt you."

Still, he would not stop staring.  His eyes remained fixed on the spot where the mirror once rested.

She stood in front of him, blocking his view with her body.  She reached inside herself once more, but no magic would suffice.  She needed to reach him, to find the words that would undo this spell.

"We can't change it, Squall.  It's real.  It happened."  She swallowed, and took a deep breath.  Her hand dropped to her side, unsurprised to find a weapon there.  She drew it, holding it at eye level, even less surprised to find that she held Squall's gunblade Lionheart.

"But we can make it right.  We can avenge the dead, and reclaim what's ours."

She held it out to him, taking his right hand and closing it over the hilt with hers.  She saw a spark of life.

"And to do that... we fight."

Squall's eyes flickered down to meet hers.


	19. Virtuoso

Seifer stared, certain his eyes deceived him.  Fujin had said it, but he still couldn't believe it.  He had a vague awareness of something dangerous lurking near her, but his mind could only process one shock at a time.

"Quistis," he murmured, echoing his friend's statement.

The woman in front of him bore more than a passing resemblance to Quistis.  This woman had dark hair and eyes, and olive skin, but an identical facial structure.  The same slight pout to the lips, the same skeptical arch to the eyebrows.  But for the differences in skin color, he might have thought them twins.

"Who...?  What...?" he asked, eyes blinking of their own accord, as if they could blot out the mystery.

"SISTERS?" Fujin guessed.

The woman's mouth turned up in harsh contempt.

"Scarlet.  Half-sister," she spat.

"How?" Seifer stammered, still mostly non-verbal.

"SEIFER," Fujin murmured, noticing the figure next to Scarlet.  "TROUBLE."

"Listen to her," Scarlet smiled.  "You have bigger problems than your friend's heritage."

Seifer's eyes traveled away from this not-Quistis to the shape standing beside her.  Once again, his breath slid out of his body as he processed the scene.  He recognized – at least partially, the person standing next to her: SeeD Cadet McMurdo – a third-rate firearms specialist with nothing to distinguish him from the rest of the herd. 

Except for the fact that, at Cid's request, McMurdo had tried to assassinate the Headmaster.  Cid would have demanded an investigation into the attack -- with McMurdo implicating Squall in the hit – had Mallis not poisoned the Headmaster first.

Seifer had not seen McMurdo since the moments following the assassination attempt, when a Security team escorted the cadet to Garden's underground interrogation facility, The Dark.

Fujin spent considerable time questioning McMurdo about the shooting, with Quistis overseeing the proceedings.  While she rarely spoke about her time in The Dark, Quistis had intimated that things got ugly.  She used bureaucratic phrases like "aggressive questioning" or "coercive interrogation."

In short, torture.

And now, here McMurdo stood, bearing no visible signs of imprisonment.  In fact, he seemed better than ever.  His skin almost glowed with vitality, and he seemed to have... _swelled._  He seemed at once taller, and bulkier, and more _present_than before.  His eyes seemed different too – looking at them, Seifer caught glimpses of something behind them.  In one, a flicker of red, like a laser; in the other, green, like night-vision.

"I believe you three know each other," Scarlet smiled, and Seifer could see her teeth.  "I'll let you get reacquainted."  She turned and walked away, but did not leave the main concourse.  The words _safe distance_popped into Seifer's head.

"Fujin," McMurdo growled.

His head, jerked, once, and then, somehow, he transformed.

The tips of his fingers popped away, and vicious-looking claws extended, hidden within his hands.  His left arm opened, revealing a high-caliber cannon and his right hand slid down and back as a long, gleaming blade unsheathed itself from his arm.  A targeting reticle dropped down from beneath an eyelid, covering his right eye.

Seifer's hand dropped to his side, reaching for Hyperion out of instinct, when he realized that he had not brought his gunblade.  Knowing he'd have to wriggle through air ducts and dangle off the side of the building, he'd left it behind, sacrificing power for mobility.

McMurdo raised his left arm.  Seifer had an instant to see a flash of red behind the creature's right eye.  He lunged to one side as the floor erupted behind him, the cannon taking out a nasty chunk of ground.

"Fujin?" Seifer asked, still watching McMurdo, unwilling to take his eyes off the monster.

"HERE," his friend replied.

Seifer heard the whirring of motors as McMurdo's arm moved once more.  He watched, waiting, looking at the eye behind the reticle, anticipating the flash.  When it came, he jumped, the floor exploding once more.

His move landed him next to Fujin this time, and she placed her hand on his back as he stood.  McMurdo's cannon moved again, pointing at Seifer, and then it dropped.

"What?" McMurdo snarled.  He raised his arm again, gritting his teeth and struggling as he did so.  He roared, bringing the cannon to bear, when the unthinkable happened.

It shut down.  The arm dropped, limp, to McMurdo's side, the cannon retreating back within its biological holster.  The targeting reticle vanished from McMurdo's eye.  McMurdo glared at his useless arm, snarling in impotent rage.

Half a heartbeat passed, and comprehension dawned on Seifer.

"You can't shoot at Fujin," he said.  McMurdo raised his left arm into firing position, but it did no good, the cannon hidden.  "You can't shoot at Fujin!"

As if to test the theory, Seifer gave Fujin a nudge.  She stepped forward, walking  into McMurdo's line of fire.  His arm jerked, as if firing the absent cannon.

Nothing happened.  Fujin did not flinch.

McMurdo seethed.  Without warning, the cannon appeared again, as did the reticle.  McMurdo fired.  And again.  And again.

Shots exploded all around Fujin, the ground at her feet exploding.  Again he fired, and again.  Fujin stood there, watching him, a slow smile growing on her face.

When the cannon fell silent, she stood there, unmoved.  A little dusty, perhaps, but not so much as scratched by the flying chunks of rock.

"Why... can't I... kill you?" McMurdo panted, his rage overcoming the mechanical rhythm of his respirator.

Seifer's eyes darted over to Scarlet.  If any of this came as a surprise to her, she did not show it.  She had a look on her face that Seifer recognized – Quistis's "taking notes" face, the face she adopted when mentally recording something for later review.

McMurdo lurched again, his arm swinging back to Seifer, the cannon emerging.  Seifer tensed, ready for the blast, when Fujin intervened.

She darted forward, whirling inside his reach, her elbow seeking out his right eye.  It slammed into the targeting reticle, smashing it, making the cannon deactivate once more.  McMurdo's right arm – the blade – slashed at Fujin.  She ducked, but the blade retracted as it neared her.  Fujin's duck turned into a shoulder roll, and she landed at Seifer's side.

Seifer felt himself start to smirk.

"Quistis was right about you," he called.  "Third-rate, at best."

A growl sounded in McMurdo's throat.

"Even that's generous," Seifer continued.  "She said you lacked the independent thought necessary for the assassination.  You know what that means, _boy_?"

McMurdo's blade extended once more, his clawed hands flexing.

"It means you don't have the _balls_."

McMurdo took a step, advancing on Seifer.  The blond man backpedaled, walking backwards as he talked.

"I mean, come on, _kid_!"  He gestured to Fujin.  "She _tortured_you!  You don't even have the guts to kill her!  You can't hit me, you couldn't shoot her?  What does a guy have to do to get killed in this place?"

McMurdo continued walking, one step after another, slow, inevitable, powerful, like the movement of a glacier.

"Look at you.  Decked out with all this fancy equipment, and you still can't hack it.  What made you think you'd ever pass for a SeeD?  Mallis spent how many million gil and all you can do is wander around like a demented vacuum cleaner hopped up on crack?  Get with the program, you pathetic, worthless miscegenation of inbred genetics and second-hand electronics!  My stereo has more functions than you do, you laughable, stupid, gutless waste of—"

Seifer stopped suddenly, his smiled widening.  He pointed down.  McMurdo glanced at his feet to notice he'd stepped in the small stream, with Seifer and Fujin standing on the opposite shore.  Seifer's hand flashed, like a magician producing a card, and suddenly he held the SD-341 tactical stun baton.  The Bug Zapper.

He snapped it to its full length and in one clean motion, his thumb moving up the intensity slider at the same time.  Seifer plunged the baton into the stream, discharging the full contents of an energy crystal into the water – into McMurdo's body.

McMurdo slumped as the electricity overwhelmed his systems.  Seifer grabbed Fujin's hand and tugged her towards the elevator, pressing a button on the handlink clipped to his belt.

*          *

His eyes track the movement of the baton into the water.  Something in him recognizes the danger, but he cannot tell if this sense comes from his old brain or his new brain. 

**Err**

**Critical Failure at 8x00f87**

**Beginning Dump of Physical Memory...**

Scarlet screaming and firing her pistol.  Seifer and Fujin running.  His field of vision fades to blue.

He comes online again – alive – as he feels himself crumble.  As splash echoes in his ears as he hits the water.  He tries to breathe, but it feels alien to him.  Without the constant pulse of his respirator, the influx of commands from his new brain, the machine does not function.  He suffocates, quiet, unable to scream, trapped within the monstrosity of his body.

So little McMurdo remains.  A brain in a very expensive jar, and little else.  Claustrophobia overwhelms him, like when older cadets pushed him into a weapons locker and closed the door after him.

Did Seifer do that?

He wonders, but cannot recall.  Those memories have vanished, chewed up in order to make room for his new brain.

His absent new brain.  It has fallen silent, for the first time since his awakening.  It no longer chatters in his ear, and he suffers alone with his thoughts.

Claustrophobia.  Darkness.  Solitude.  Uncertainty. 

WarMech vanishes.  Only McMurdo remains, a small, scared, frightened cadet trapped in The Dark, awaiting interrogation.  All around him, the swirl of events he cannot comprehend.  Death, at least, will come quickly, his brain choked to death.  Hypoxia.

He tries to remember how long it will take, but that memory, too, eludes him.  So much of him gone, used up to create his obscene metal bulk.

**Power restored at unknown time**

**Reset internal clock**

**Missing files**

**Running "diag.prg"**

His breath resumes, and as he inhales, he receives a welcome deluge of information, his other brain awake and soothing once more.

"—useless pile of garbage!" she mutters, and he waits for her to kick him.  She does not, and he stands up, a dark smile on his face.  "Go!" she commands.  "Get them!"

She holds a phone and yells instructions to that, too, but he finds it redundant.  He made a simple mistake, brought on by the novelty of his situation, but now he knows, realizes the danger, sees Seifer as a palpable threat.

"Kill," he growls.  "Kill them..."

**Err**

**Objective: Fujin**

**Apprehend with minimal force**

**Apprehend with minimal force**

**Apprehend...**

**Break**

He thunders after them, moving swiftly as his motors will allow.  He sees them at the top of the elevator, its doors opening.  He thought his breakdown lasted longer.

"Stop them!" she screams again.

His legs tense, hydraulic pressure carrying him to the top of the stairs in one bound.  The elevator doors have already closed, but he forces his blade into the space between them.  He grits his teeth and pushes, and the door separates.

The elevator has ascended.  Something beeps.

Up, he thinks.  People always panic up.  He remembers an Instructor teaching him this once, a lifetime ago – two lifetimes ago.

His blade retracts and he jumps into the elevator shaft, claws sinking into the wall opposite him.  He starts to climb, moving after the elevator.  A cord brushes his face, and his eyes trace it up the shaft as a voice floats from below.

"What'd I tell you, Fujin?" Seifer says.  "He's strong, but not so bright."

"SAD."

He looks down the shaft.  His eyes pierce the darkness.  In the green of night vision, and the red of thermal vision, he sees them, at the bottom of the shaft, looking up from an access port his other brain has just informed him exists.

His brain, the slow, soft part processes several other details.  The bottom of the elevator, its hatch open, a cord dangling down the shaft – their means of escape.

The beeping.  He asks his other brain a question, and it identifies the sound, checking it for tone and pitch.

**Identified: Standard-issue SeeD remote triggering device**

**Used to detonate plastic explosives and remote mines...**

His brain continues to give him details, an endless stream of trivia that could prove useful in any situation but this one.  He glances up to confirm his fear and the elevator shaft explodes.

The fire washes over him, stripping synthetic skin away from his metal skeleton.  He survives, somehow, left naked and bare, an engine of death stripped of its disguise.

As the mechanical part of him processes the situation, assesses the damage, interprets the strange noises surrounding, the human part of him floods with relief

This lasts for half a second, when the screaming of metal on metal announces the collapse of the elevator, the car rocketing down the shaft and slamming into him.

*          *

Seifer, the need for subtlety past, kicked off the grating allowing access into the parking garage.

"Here we are," he said, standing up and extending a hand to Fujin to help her out of the warrens.

"NOW?"

Seifer's hand danced and produced a key.  "Now," he said, crossing the garage, "we ride."

His motorcycle hadn't moved from its parking space.  No one had even touched it.

"BALAMB?" she asked.

"And we take the train from there," he said, hopping on the bike and starting it.  Fujin climbed on behind him, wrapping her arms around him.

Seifer gunned the engine and tore out of the parking lot, not caring if he left tire tracks in the garage.

*          *

Rinoa woke to the feeling of weight on her head.  She tried to place the source of the rhythmic pressure, when her eyes flew open – Squall, gently stroking her hair.

  
"Squall!" she exclaimed.  "You're back!  I mean, you're okay!  I mean—"

"Shhh," he whispered, pressing a finger to her lips.  "I'm back."

Rinoa sobbed, crying into his chest, relieved at his safety.

"What... What did I miss?" he asked, voice weak from disuse.

Rinoa reached out and grabbed the bottle of water sitting on the nightstand pressing it to his lips.  When he'd drunk his fill, she replaced it.

  
"Let's see," she said.  "Quistis relieved you of your command and blew up an arms manufacturer.  Nida stole an airship.  My party was—" she glanced out the window, seeing the morning sun, "--last night, and it went very well.  Seifer's gone missing, and that's all I know."

"What?" Squall struggled to sit up, but Rinoa pushed him back down.

"Easy there," she said.  "You're not going anywhere until you're cleared by one of your doctors."

Squall nodded, and sat back.

"Attention," came Xu's voice over the intercom, cutting into every corner of the Garden.  "This is a priority one alert.  All members of the First Team, report to the hanger at once.  First Team to the hanger."

Squall started wriggling again, trying to work his way out from under Rinoa.  He slid her to the side without much effort and seized the needle of his IV, pulling it out of his hand.

"What are you doing?" she asked.  "You can't do that."

"I'll clot," he replied.  "I have to go."

"Squall, you can't be serious!" Rinoa protested.

Squall staggered to his feet, still unsteady.

  
"I need to know what's going on," he said, "I can't do that here."  He took a few steps, wobbling uncertain, and had to grip onto the chair for balance.

"Please, Rinoa" he said, imploring her with his eyes.  "Help me."

Rinoa shook her head, knowing she'd already lost.  He'd go, with or without her help, even if he had to crawl to the hanger.

"Just promise me you won't do any fighting while you're like this," she said.

He nodded.  "Promise."

Rinoa sighed.

"I'll get your clothes."


	20. Amboss oder Hammer

Seifer and Fujin boarded the train at Balamb, securing themselves within SeeD's private car.  Neither one relaxed until the train started to move.

As they rolled out of the station, Fujin put her arms around Seifer, holding him tight.

  
"THANKS," she murmured.

"No biggie, babe," he said, placing his hand on the back of her head.  "Sorry it took so long."

He held her for a moment and then took a step back.

"They hurt you?" he asked.

"NEGLIGIBLE," she replied.  "INCONVENIENCES."

"Good."  He crossed the train car to one of the wall compartments, pulling it open and looking inside.  "Change of clothes in here," he said.  "Your uniform's seen better days."

Fujin glanced in the compartment and found a uniform that fit as Seifer took a seat and started thumbing through a magazine, his mind still racing.  She changed into the new clothes, dropping the old on the floor.  This done, she took a seat next to Seifer, stretching out and placing her feet on his lap.

"Feel better now?"

Her nose wrinkled as she glanced at her discarded clothes.  "RIPE."

"I'll bet it's good to get to a decent seat, too," he added.  "The detention center wasn't built with comfort in mind."

Fujin sighed, content and relieved.  As the adrenaline wore off, she lapsed into a light slumber, Seifer watching over her, feeling more like a Knight than ever.  

As the train started across the Horizon Bridge, the sunlight gleamed off the ocean, shining into the cabin.  Fujin's eye fluttered open and she stretched her arm over her head, the motion languid.

"WINDOW?" she asked.

Seifer shook his head.  "You're like a cat," he said.  "Give you a place to stretch out and you're dead to the world."

Fujin smiled at him, the sight sweet after long separation.  She purred in contentment, taking pleasure in their familiar dialogue.  The patter diverted their minds from bigger issues – Scarlet and Quistis, Mallis's plans to revive Adel.  They could discuss these in ample detail on their return to Esthar Garden, but for now, basic conversation served as a comfort.

Seifer sighed, moving Fujin's feet and standing, "Captured and imprisoned by a madman and now you can't even open a window by yourself?  Lazy, lazy, lazy."

He objected for the sake of objecting, nothing more.  He crossed to the window and slid it open, turning to Fujin at the same time.

  
"There," he said, bowing low.  "Fresh air and sunlight.  Is milady happy?"

"ECSTATIC."

Seifer's eyes glittered as he opened his mouth, but something held him back.

"You hear that?" he asked.

Fujin's ears perked up, listening.  She heard the same thing.  Over the rhythm of the train, the sound of wind rushing by, came a low roaring.  As the sound intensified, the sunlight receded, blocked out by something huge.

"What the hell?" Seifer mumbled.  He and Fujin turned as one, Seifer brushing aside the curtains.

Black and red metal gleamed out the window.  Fujin's eye widened.  The shape slowed, allowing the train to advance on it.  To their horror, glass appeared, and behind the glass, the face of General Mallis.

"Fun time is over," came Mallis's voice, broadcast from a loudspeaker aboard the _Apocalypse._  "Time to come home."

"Son of a bitch," Seifer cursed.  He glanced down to the panel beneath Fujin's seat, delivering a swift kick.  A hidden drawer sprung open, and Fujin saw a gleam of silver.  Seifer crouched, donning a bandolier and slinging a rifle over his shoulder.

"WHAT?" Fujin asked.

"Mallis pulled this after the fall of Balamb Garden," Seifer said.  "So I added an insurance policy."

As Seifer moved, Fujin got a good look at the bandolier: pulse ammo.  He moved to another compartment and produced two headsets, fitting one to his ear and throwing the other to Fujin.  Next, he tossed her his ID keycard.

"Get on the line with Garden," he instructed.  "Have the duty officer call Xu.  Tell her you want to disconnect the train car.  She'll walk you through the process."

"UNDERSTOOD.  YOU?"

"I'm going to even the score," Seifer said, speaking through clenched teeth.  He slid open the door to the cabin and headed outside.

Fujin placed the headset in her ear and opened the channel to Garden.  Xu's voice came through at once.

"Seifer?  Is that you?" she asked.

"FUJIN."

"Fujin!" Xu exclaimed.  "Good to hear your voice.  What's the situation?"

"The Apocalypse is attacking," Fujin explained, the stress of the situation prompting her to full sentences.  "I need to disconnect the train car."

"Give me a second," Xu responded.  "I'll scramble the First Team, and then we'll get on it."

Xu went offline for a minute, and then the line reopened.

"Okay," she said.  "You need a level five access card for this.  You ready?"

Fujin glanced down at Seifer's ID card as it danced between her fingers.

"READY."

*          *

Seifer opened the door to the train car, gritting his teeth at the sudden wind.  He swung out onto the ladder, climbing atop the train.  At the sight of him, the _Apocalypse _swung away from the train, gearing itself up for an attack run.

"All right, you bastard..." he muttered, loading the pulse ammo into the rifle.  He listened to the humming as the rifle drained power from the energy crystal.  When the light turned green, he shouldered the rifle.  The _Apocalypse _roared towards him, focusing its sights on Seifer.

"Time to die!" he roared, pulling the rifle into firing position.  The pulse rifle discharged, a burst of white light flaring out from the muzzle.

Mallis saw the flash an instant too late.  He banked, but not soon enough, and the blast caught the _Apocalypse _on one of its fins.  A glancing hit, damaging but insignificant.  Mallis broke away, circling into the distance.

"If that's what it takes," Seifer growled.  "One shot at a time."

Seifer pulled back the bolt, and the ammo ejected, flying into the distance as the train moved.  He slammed another cartridge into place, listened to the sound.  No sign of the _Apocalypse._  He watched.  Scanned the sky.  Saw a glint of light on the horizon as the ship's wings caught the sun.

Seifer raised the rifle, aiming in the direction of the spark.

*          *

"...okay, Fujin," Xu said.  "Last step.  Swipe the card through the reader and you're disconnected."

"AFFIRMATIVE," Fujin said, doing as instructed.  The SeeD car lurched as it separated from the rest of the train.

*          *

The ship materialized out of nowhere, unhesitating, unleashing a volley of missiles.  The car's speed dropped, the rest of the train rocketing ahead as the car ran on pure momentum.  The sudden change in speed forced Seifer to one knee, but the missiles went wide, flying over the bridge in front of the car.

"Your mistake, boy," came Mallis's voice on the loudspeaker.  "You should have kept moving."

"Keep talking, asshole," Seifer said, knowing Mallis couldn't hear him.  "Keep talking."

From his kneeling position, Seifer fired again, the shot made simpler by the fact that no longer had to account for the train's motion.  Mallis's reaction rate still helped him dodge, but the shot hit closer to home this time, puncturing a hole in the ship's wing, further hindering its mobility.

Seifer ejected the spent cartridge and loaded another, readying himself for the next attack run, feeling the crosshairs centering on him.

*          *

The boy hovered in his sights.  Seifer might manage to squeeze off another round, but Mallis could kill him here and now.  A delicate shot, having to destroy Seifer without damaging the train car.  Another corpse, another body to add to the pile.  One more death in service to the Great Queen.  The prospect of spilling blood delighted Mallis, and he foresaw a glorious day ahead of him.

He pressed the engine, racing forward to meet the boy, where he could pick him off using the machine guns.  At this distance, they'd each get one chance.  Seifer could do real damage with that pulse rifle.

Mallis's lip curled into a snarl.  How would the child fair against 30mm ammunition?  The main guns of the _Apocalypse _could deliver over 600 rounds per minute each.  More than enough to stop one errant SeeD.

A ping sounded in the cabin.  Without looking, Mallis flipped open the communications channel.

A voice sounded in his ear, familiar and thrilling.  

"_Apocalypse._  This is _Ragnarok._  Break off your attack at once."

Mallis smiled, bared his teeth.  A glorious day, indeed.

"Squall."

*          *

Squall knelt in the cockpit of the _Ragnarok_, sandwiched between Selphie and Quistis, pilot and co-pilot.  He used their chairs to steady himself as he spoke into the microphone.

"I repeat: break off your attack at once or we _will_ shoot you down."

"Squall!" came Seifer's voice, carried over the headsets.  "Welcome back to the land of the living!"

"This is familiar, isn't it Squall?" asked Mallis.  "The two of us, a train car, your inability to fire on me.  Or have you forgotten the IFF lockouts?"

"Hit him," Squall said to Quistis.  

Quistis lit fly with a burst of machine-gun fire.  The bullets crashed into the _Apocalypse_'s armor as Mallis banked.

"I'm not screwing around," Squall said.  "We disabled the IFF system."

"Not bad," Mallis replied, nonplussed.  "But by the time you shoot me down, your friends will be dead."

"Nida," Squall commanded.

The _Ragnarok _slowed to a stop, hovering in midair, as its cargo bay opened.  A burst of silver exploded out of the ship as the _Discovery _emerged, rainbow metal glittering in the sunlight.  It flew like at the _Apocalypse_ like lightning, flying fast circles around the larger ship.

"That's mine!" Mallis roared.  "I built that ship!  I designed it!  Mine!"

"Hit him again," Squall instructed.

"With pleasure," chirped Irvine.

The wings of the _Discovery_ started to glow blue as it built up its energy.  The light moved from the wings into the ship's needle nose.  It discharged in a brilliant flash, lancing through the sky and lopping off one of the _Apocalypse_'s claws.  The metal appendage fell into the ocean with a splash.

Mallis howled in agony.

All three ships came to a halt, hovering in a tense standoff.

"Well done," Mallis said, voice grave.  "But all I have to do is broadcast a distress signal from this vessel, and my troops at Garden will execute the hostages."

Selphie and Quistis turned to Squall.

"Say the word, Squall," Quistis murmured.

The _Discovery _shimmered with accumulated power, another blast ready.

"I've got him in my sights," Irvine said.  "We can end this now."

"Fujin?"  Seifer asked over the headset.  "Is he bluffing?"

"NO."

Squall looked long at the _Apocalypse_, its weapons bristling.  The ship itself looked eager for a fight.

"Run," Squall said, voice dark.  "Before I reconsider."

"Good form," came Mallis's voice as the _Apocalypse _banked away, retreating into the distance.  "Be seeing you."

"Bastard," Irvine muttered as the channel with Mallis's ship closed.

Everyone mourned the lost opportunity, but no one voiced it.

"_Discovery,_ come back," Squall commanded.   "Seifer, ready the car for docking."

Seifer kicked open the roof hatch on the SeeD car and dropped inside.  In moments, a series of attachments emerged from the roof of the train car, allowing the _Ragnarok _to pick it up off the track.  The dragon-ship turned for Garden, the SeeD car clutched beneath it.

*          *

Seifer stepped out of the train car to find the rest of the First Team waiting for him.  He offered Fujin a hand and helped her down, turning back to the group and smiling.  Only Selphie smiled back.  Everyone else looked to Squall.

"No speeches," Squall said.  "No lectures.  This is why I wanted you in SeeD in the first place.  You're the one who can take these kinds of risks. It paid off.  Fujin," he nodded to her, "welcome back."

"THANKS."

"Take the afternoon to rest.  Everyone, dinner in my office at 1800.  We'll debrief then.  I want reports on everything that's happened in my absence."

Squall turned to leave, still unsteady on his feet.  Rinoa stood at the end of the hangar, and put her arm around him for support as he neared.

Quistis moved first, walking in long strides.  She approached Seifer and stopped in front of him.  One eyebrow arced up from behind her glasses.  Quistis opened her mouth to say something but then, thinking better of it, just shook her head.  She punched Seifer lightly on the shoulder and gave him a hug.

"Thanks, blondie," he said.  Then, after a moment, "We _really_ need to talk.  There's something you need to know."

"Later," she said, glancing over his shoulder.  "Someone else has first crack at you."

Seifer pulled away.  "Is he angry?"

She gestured with her head.  Seifer turned to see Zell watching him, a mixture of rage and relief and worry and frustration racing through his eyes.  Seifer crossed over to Zell, stopping short of him.

"Zell, I..." he began.  "I'm sorry."

Zell nodded, slow and deliberate.  "Don't do it again," he said.  He grabbed at Seifer, pulling him close.  "Don't do it again."

"Come on, everyone!" Selphie chirped, her voice carrying across the room.  "Cheer up -we kicked ass today!  Fujin's home!  Best of all," her eyes sparkled.  "Party at Squall's place!"

*          *

The _Apocalypse _landed in the hangar.  Scarlet watched it and, had she not known better, she might have thought it empty.  None of the soldiers waiting to repair the vehicle dared approach.

After fifteen minutes passed, the gangplank extended.  Mallis stalked down, and she saw the rage burning in his eye.  She didn't approach him.  Soldiers started sliding past Mallis on the gangplank and heading for the ship.

Mallis's left hand flew to his head, covering the empty socket as he sank to his knees.  His mouth opened in a scream of pain, but no sound emerged.  One hand flashed out, grabbing the nearest soldier and throwing him on the ground.  Mallis struck the man, vicious, the sound echoing through the empty room.  He hit the man again, and once again, then grabbed his head and slammed it onto the metal gangplank.  The man's skull cracked with a sickening thud.

"Squall!" he roared.

He rose, moving in a flash, grabbing another soldier's head with both hands, twisting the man's neck at an impossible angle.

Scarlet moved.  One death she could stand, anything more entered the realm of sentimental nonsense.

"Stop!" she commanded.  Mallis dropped the corpse he held and turned on her, advancing in a blur.

He seized her face in one hand, lifting her off the ground by her jaw.

"What did you just say?" he hissed.

Scarlet moved, too fast for the General to follow, her foot slamming into his stomach.  He dropped Scarlet, falling to one knee in surprise.

"I said 'stop,'" she said, voice level.

Mallis stared up at her, danger in his face.  "You forget your place," he said.

"You forget yours," she countered.  "You are a servant of the Great Queen, and this is how you demonstrate your loyalty?  By losing control at the first setback?  By slaughtering her troops?"

Mallis did not answer.

"Stand up," she said.  He rose, towering over her.  "Did Adel teach you nothing?" she asked.  "Control of self precedes control of others."  She looked at him, waiting for a sign of recognition.  "You taught me that.  Remember?"

He breathed, nostrils flaring as he did so.  

"You have a plan?" he murmured.

"They've shown their weakness," she replied.  "You threaten one, and the others come to the rescue.  You want Seifer, you threaten Fujin.  You want Squall..."

A slow smile spread across Mallis's lips.

*          *

Ambassador Shackleton entered his office, the promise of a new day stretched out before him.  The reception had gone well, he had received nothing but praise from Laguna, but he couldn't afford to rest on his laurels.  If he wanted to ensure Esthar's place in the diplomatic world, he had to keep working.

A phone rang.  Not one he used for everyday circumstances.  The special phone.  His boss called.

He produced a key from his pocket and unlocked a desk drawer.  He pulled out a cellular phone, small and sleek, almost too small for his hands.  He flipped it open and held it to his ear.

"Sir?" he asked.  "Yes, sir.  Everything's well, sir...  They'll be here when?"

Shackleton nodded.

"I understand, sir.  By the end of the day.  Of course, sir.  I am, as ever, a humble servant of the Great Queen."

The line went dead in his hand.  Shackleton snapped the phone shut, replaced it in its spot, and locked the drawer.

He leaned his head out the door, calling down the hall.

"Rinoa, dear, could you come here for a moment?"


	21. Endgame

Xu crossed into the cafeteria and took a quick look around, her eyes quickly searching out her target.  Nida sat at a table near the windows, surrounded by the three members of squad 48.  The three very _female_ and very _interested _members of squad 48.  He finished his sentence and they all burst into laughter, clearly hanging on his every word.

Xu approached, cutting her way across the cafeteria.  Nida turned as she approached.

"Xu!" he said, waving to her.  "Come, pull up a chair!"

One corner of her mouth turned up in a secret smile.  "Thank you, Captain Nomura, I'll stand."

"Suit yourself," he replied.

"48," she commented, clasping her hands behind her back, "if memory serves, you're supposed to leave for Winhill in one hour.  I'd hate for you to miss the train."

The members of squad 48 took the hint and scrambled to their feet, hurrying out of the cafeteria.  Nida turned to Xu with something beyond irritation on his face.

"What the—" he said.

"Walk with me, Nida," she commented, turning and heading out of the cafeteria.

"Hey!" Nida called out, following her.  "What the hell was that?  I had a very good chance of going home with one of those girls."

Xu raised an eyebrow but didn't turn to look at him.  "Based on the rumors, I'd say you had a good chance at going home with all three of those girls."

"So why did you—"

"We have a lot to do, Nida, and very little time with which to do it."

"What are you talking about?"

They'd reached the central elevator and boarded, Xu's cardkey moving the elevator to her office.  While Squall's had the advantage of size, he'd never really bothered to decorate.  The furniture served a purely utilitarian purpose.  Xu, though, had carefully crafted her office to suit her tastes.

Every time he entered her office, Nida had the impression that he'd walked onto a chessboard.  The whole office had a clean, efficient look, accented by the purity of its black-and-white color scheme.  Squall's office had considerably more chrome, but Xu had no visible metal.  Black woods and white silk screens.  A quick glance around the room furthered the comparison – many SeeDs considered chess a hobby, given its importance in their curriculum.  Xu, however, elevated the hobby into an obsession.  She loved chess more than Triple Triad, considering the latter preferable only because games only had to last a few minutes.  As Nida glanced at Xu's décor, he spotted no fewer than four chess sets, all with games in progress.  In one of the games, Xu would no doubt have Quistis as an opponent, meaning the game would end in an inevitable draw.

"Sit," she said, indicating one of the chairs.  When Nida did, Xu lowered herself into the chair behind the desk.  She tented her fingers together and studied his face.

"Xu, again, what is all this about?  You know I hate it when you get all cryptic." Nida asked.

"You were at the briefing dinner tonight; you heard Seifer and Fujin's report."

"I did?  I mean, yeah, I did," he nodded.  "But what does that have to do with—"

"While Squall was comatose, Quistis and I have been assembling a profile of Mallis.  With the information Fujin gave us, I was able to fill in the blanks.  Whatever Mallis's next move is, I predict he'll make it within the next twenty-four hours."  She paused for a second.  "If he hasn't already."

"And you want to be ready."

"I do," she replied.  "Specifically, I want to be ready by the time Quistis returns from meeting her sister.  She's on her way out now, and I'd like to have good news for her when she returns."

"And where do I come in?" Nida asked.

Xu picked up a remote control and pointed it over Nida's head.  He swiveled his chair to see a very expensive painting slide away to reveal a video monitor.  She clicked again, and the camera winked to life, showing security feeds from Balamb Garden – the day of the fall.  The images focused on The Storm, wave after wave troopers raining down from the sky.

"The Storm," he said.

Xu's eyes flicked to the ceiling for a moment and she ran her tongue over her teeth.

"I've gone over the tapes extensively.  On a one-to-one basis, even our cadets outperformed Mallis's troops.  The problem is that there was a nearly infinite supply of them.  Every time we started to make headway, a fresh wave came in.  They sandbagged us with numbers."

"What are you proposing?"

Xu waved her hand, indicating one of the chess sets.  "When your opponent has a material advantage, you do what you can to neutralize it without sacrificing any material of your own."

She waited a second, gauging Nida's reaction, before continuing.

"In short, we destroy The Storm."

Nida whistled.  "That's a pretty tall order, lady."

"I know," she said.  "That's why you're here."

The images on the screen continued to play.  Ship after ship descended on Balamb Garden, expelling its human cargo before retreating.

"You're the one who first identified The Storm.  What can you tell me that would be helpful?"

Nida shook his head.  "I only know a little.  The sort of stuff I've read in history books."

"Let's start with the basics," she said, looking at the screen.  "How many ships were in The Storm?"

Nida scrunched up his face as he tried to remember what his late father – an expatriate test pilot from Esthar – had told him.

"Freeze it here!" he exclaimed, pointing to the screen.  Xu did so.  The screen showed nine ships, flying in a wedge-shaped formation.  "Two-hundred ninety-seven ships," he said.

"You're sure about that?" Xu raised an eyebrow.

"That wedge is called a 'drop,'" Nida explained.  "You know, like a drop of rain?  Nine ships to a drop.  Eleven drops to a cloud, making ninety-nine ships in a cloud.  Three clouds – thirty-three drops – make up The Storm."

Xu nodded, impressed.  "Two-hundred ninety-seven.  Now we're getting somewhere."  She started the tape again.

"In going over the tapes, I have identified no fewer than fifty-four ships used in the attack on Balamb Garden.  Six drops.  I have records obtained from Esthar that unassailably document the destruction of one-hundred fifty ships."

"So Mallis has between fifty-four and one-hundred forty-seven ships," Nida said.  He shrugged.  "We're halfway there."

"More importantly," Xu continued, "we know what we're looking for.  The security feeds tell us The Storm isn't at Balamb Garden.  And you can't just hide fifty troop ships behind a mountain.  You need the troops to man them, the fuel to power them, the crew to service them."

"We need a small army to work on the _Ragnarok, _and that's just one ship," Nida acknowledged.

"Exactly.  Plus, Mallis has to keep tabs on the _Apocalypse._  Lately, it's been in the hangar at Garden, but he had to keep it somewhere before that."

"Plus," Nida said, getting into the spirit of things, "he has to have somewhere big enough to keep all the men.  Each one of those ships typically has between fifteen and twenty soldiers on board.  Even if he just has the fifty-four ships, that's at least eight hundred soldiers.  It's not like they can all call in sick for work to invade some place.  They've got to be housed.  Barracks.  He needs something... huge.  Something too big to conceal."

"That's my thinking," she nodded.  "Whatever he's using, it's so obvious that we'd naturally look past it."

"So how do we find it?" Nida asked.  "How do we find the obvious?"

"That's my job," Xu said.  "An operation this massive will leave a paper trail.  I'll find it."

"And my job?"

"You tell me what to do when we find it.  Even in a best-case scenario, we don't have the capacity to take down fifty-four ships and the base that houses them."

Nida frowned.  "I can't help you there.  But I know who can."

"I'm all ears."

"Put a call in to FH.  Mayor Dobe's house."

Xu registered a moment of shock.  "That sandal-wearing hippie?  Why him?"

"Not him," Nida explained.  "His wife."

"Fine," Xu responded, dialing the phone.  "Why her?"

"She built it."

Xu stopped in mid-dial.

"The Storm, I mean," Nida said.  "She designed it pretty much top-to-bottom."

Xu shook her head and continued dialing.

The monitor went blank for a second, flaring the SeeD insignia as the Security department cleared the call.  After a moment, Mayor Dobe's face popped up on the screen.

"Nida," he said.  "This is a pleasant..." his voice trailed off as he saw Xu.

"Mayor Dobe," Nida said, "I'd like you to meet Xu Xiucai.  She's SeeD's Executive Officer and head of the SeeD Judicial Corps."

"A mercenary and a lawyer," Dobe said, barely disguising the contempt in his voice.  "Lovely combination."

"Sir," Nida said, unperturbed, "I'd like to speak with your wife.  Please."

Dobe grumbled briefly but went to fetch his wife, Flo, who appeared on the monitor shortly thereafter.  They went through the introductions again with no warmer a reception.

"Hi, Flo," Nida said.  "Listen, I have to ask a favor of you."

"Whatever it is, the answer is 'no,'" she said.  "You left FH and decided to become a mercenary.  If your father were alive..."

Nida's voice cooled at once.  "If my father were alive, he'd be proud of me.  He'd understand that I left FH to protect it.  Sooner or later, some less-than-savory person is going to realize just how much untapped potential is in the collective brains of FH and come knocking on your door.  They will capture or kill you all, and your pacifism will be useless.  I joined SeeD so that when that day comes, I can help protect my home.  And if I have to get my hands dirty to do it, so be it."

Xu glanced over at Nida, a trifle amazed.  Flo seemed less impressed and Xu decided to intervene.

"Ms. Dobe," she said.  "Are you familiar with a man named Justinian Varrant?"

Flo paled enough that Xu could see it over the videophone.

"I see that's a yes," she continued.  "Then I assume you know what he's capable of.  He is alive and well and very determined to see the resurrection of Adel."

Flo's hand fluttered to her throat.

  
"To do this, he is using an airborne invasion force that you may also find familiar.  Allow me to send you some pictures."

Xu transmitted the pictures from the fall of Balamb Garden.

  
"These pictures were taken when General Mallis – whom you know as Varrant – invaded Balamb Garden.  You can see he's using the very weapons you designed.  He has at least fifty of these ships and possibly as many as one-hundred fifty.  With them, he overran our home.  Killed our loved ones.  If you don't help us, Esthar will be next.  He will revive Adel.

"Do I need to tell you what his next target will be?"

"Wh... what do you want?" Flo said.

"All the data you have on The Storm," Nida said.  "Design specifications.  Fuel requirements.  Anything that could tell us where he's hiding this stuff or how we can take it apart."

Flo's eyes fell to the floor.

"Five minutes," she mumbled.  "Give me five minutes to get it together, and I'll send it over to you."

"Thank you," Nida said, just before she cut the transmission.  "What now?" he asked Xu.

"You wait for Flo to send you the data.  Find me a weakness.  I'll go look for Mallis's paper trail."

Nida rose to leave the office and Xu had already started typing on her computer.  He'd have time for Squad 48 later.


	22. Contretemps

As darkness fell over Balamb Garden, he burned.  Every nerve in his body felt on fire.  His senses took in everything around him.  He felt, in short, alive.  For the first time since before the death of his Sorceress, he felt alive.  He'd caused a great deal of pain in his life, but never before had he looked forward to it with such abandon.

He wanted to pace, to move, but he stayed seated.  He needed to keep the animal inside him chained for as long as possible, so he could savor its rampage when he unleashed it.  Instead, he sat, polishing his sword with reverence.  He paid careful attention to detail, missing nothing, testing every joint, ensuring its readiness.

During his days as a sellsword, he tended to his gear with ritualistic concentration.  His companions spent their nights drinking, whoring, gambling, but he sat and polished his armor.  Sharpened his sword.  Reviewed the deployment of forces.  He didn't abstain from drinking, whoring, or gambling, of course.  Merely saved them for _after _the battle.

After a certain point, though, battles ceased to matter.  As his prowess – and power – grew, individual battles seemed less and less important.  People stopped providing a challenge.  Victory turned inevitable.

Tonight, though.  Tonight felt like those first few battles, scrabbling for a patch of ground not large enough to inter the slain.  Tonight had an air of heady desperation that intoxicated him.  

The door opened and Scarlet entered.  He did not hear her feet move on the ground as she walked.

"She's here," Scarlet said.

Mallis rose.

"Good," he replied.  "Reinforce the front gate."

"Already done."

"They'll come in through the Quad?"

"Count on it," she said.

"You are not to station any troops there.  You may not attack them until they reach the main concourse."

Scarlet's lips pulled tight on her face.

"When they arrive, let Leonhart pass.  Dispose of the rest as you see fit. If you need reinforcements, summon The Storm.  Have the girl moved to the roof.  I like to work outdoors."

Scarlet nodded, the motion almost imperceptible.  She turned on her heel and started to leave.

"You disapprove?" he called after her.

  
She turned back.  "Your penchant for drama leaves me cold.  I'd prefer to have her in a secure location."

He shrugged.  "I like to work outdoors."

She nodded again.

"Do you believe in the cause?" he inquired, eye narrowing.  "The restoration of the Great Queen Adel?"

She looked at him, cool and indifferent.  "It's a means to an end."

"What end is that?"

"Power.  Knowledge."

He smiled.  "Fujin is my daughter.  You, Scarlet, are my heir."

She nodded once, the motion curt.

"I'm going to Seaside Station.  I'll be taking the _Apocalypse._"

Mallis cocked his head a little.

"Is it—?" he asked.

"She wants a meeting," Scarlet said, cutting him off in mid-sentence.

Mallis opened his mouth, lips pulling back from his teeth as he started to speak.

"This is my affair," Scarlet said.  "I will handle it."

Mallis nodded.

"See that you don't neglect your duties."

"As you say," she replied.

"Speaking of which," Mallis said, pulling a file folder off his desk.  "Deliver this.  It should set things in motion."

Scarlet glanced inside the folder, another imperceptible nod registering her approval.  She turned on her heel and left the room.

*          *

Quistis looked up as the _Apocalypse _lowered itself to the ground, trying to catch a glimpse of her half-sister as the ship landed.  She couldn't see Scarlet through the cockpit windows but prepared herself for the worst.

The ship stood silent for a long moment.  Quistis waited in anticipation.  The gangplank lowered, and Quistis watched, hypnotized by the sight of this woman who looked so much like her.

Scarlet stopped a fair distance from Quistis, watching her watch.  Both women arrived armed, pistols holstered.  Ready to fight if it came to that.  Quistis's breathing finally resumed, and she started to speak.

"I... it... the..."

"Startling, isn't it?" Scarlet said, ice water in her voice.

"Seifer's word was 'uncanny.'"

"And your word?"

"Eerie."

"You want the family history."

Quistis nodded.  "I've always—"

"Our mother was a minor relation of Adel, second cousin or something negligible.  Too distant to wield any political influence.  Close enough to enjoy a position of mild prestige at court.  Close enough to feel threatened when the revolution started. She left the country in the final days of Adel's regime.  Your father remained behind to fight the good fight."

"It didn't go well," Quistis ventured.

"He died, a believer to the end.  When word reached our mother, living by now in Dollet, she found herself in a delicate situation.  She had no marketable skills to speak of, owing to her birth rank.  She had only modest sum of money with her.  She had grown accustomed to a certain lifestyle, befitting a relation of the Sorceress-Queen.  And she had an infant child."

"I was expendable."

"The General devoted all his resources to financing the counter-revolution.  Feeding the expensive habits of Adel's relatives was not a priority.  Off you went to the orphanage, where a quirk of fate would place you next to Squall Leonhart – son of the man responsible for your presence there."

"And you?"

"Our mother remarried.  The man was an associate of General Mallis, who became a frequent visitor in my home.  An uncle of sorts."

"Some uncle."

"Preferable to our mother.  It didn't take long for her to regret placing you in the orphanage.  She attempted to find you, but Cid Kramer had already set his sights on you and made you untraceable."

"If he has such an extensive network, why didn't Mallis track me down for her?"

"The General's loyalty was – is – to the Sorceress Adel.  Not to every stray cousin.  At any rate, her decision to give you up consumed her.  Depression overtook her, as did alcohol and an ever-increasing string of drugs.  In her rare moments of sobriety, she was bitter and angry.  She ranted about the cruelties that stole her daughter.  She disowned me several times.  Banished me from the house because I reminded her of you, then begged me to return, before she lost me – like you.  One day, I left the house for good, taking with me evidence that my father had been embezzling from General Mallis.  I presented it to the General and demanded he give me a job.  That was my tenth birthday.  No doubt you appreciate the coincidence."

Quistis nodded.  "On my tenth birthday, I ran away from my foster parents and enrolled at Galbadia Garden.  One term later, I transferred to Balamb Garden."

Scarlet spread her hands.  "There you have it.  Your heritage."

"But what happened to them?" Quistis asked.  "Our mother?  Your father?"

"Both quite dead," Scarlet said, voice disinterested.  "Life expectancy decreases dramatically after one betrays the General."

"And our mother?"

"A victim of her own folly.  She died while she was drunk, injecting what she believed to be morphine."

"What was it?"

"I substituted lye.  She didn't notice the difference until the screaming started."

"So here we are."

"Indeed," Scarlet nodded.  "And you should know that this is your free pass.  The next time we meet, I will kill you."

"Why?" Quistis pressed.  "Because of what she did?  You can't hate _me _for _her _actions."

Scarlet shrugged.  "I don't."

"Then why—?"

"You're the great Instructor.  Let's try a little hypothetical.  One of your former students comes to you with a problem.  He's a SeeD with some experience under his belt, and his just received his latest assignment from high command.  He's to go to his hometown to deal with a local gang.  He knows his brother is a member of the gang, and that, in all probability, they will wind up in direct conflict.  How would you advise him?"

Quistis's eyes dropped.  "He has to resign his commission or take the assignment."

"And the brother?"

"If taking the assignment means fighting his brother, he fights his brother.  His personal life takes a backseat to his orders.  He made that choice when he signed his contract."

"Exactly."  Scarlet shrugged, the motion more a gesture of her face than her shoulders.  "The next time we meet, I will kill you."

"Is that the reason you're with Mallis?  Because it's your job?"

"I made that pledge years ago.  As long as he lives, I will serve him.  Didn't you make a similar pledge to Squall?"  A faint smile danced across her face, too familiar for Quistis's comfort.

"I don't love Squall anymore," she said, the admission shocking her.  She heard the words and felt their truth, but could not believe she'd made the confession to this woman she didn't know.

"That doesn't matter," Scarlet replied, the smile fading into nothingness.  "You chose your path.  I chose mine.  You swore your vow and you honor your obligations.  I do the same."

Scarlet turned and walked away from Quistis, leaving the blonde maddened and frustrated.  She had the answers she sought, but the knowledge left her hollow and discontent.

The _Ragnarok _and the _Apocalypse _lifted off together, joined in the same fashion as their occupants, mirrors, forever separated by the powers they served.

As Quistis watched the other ship depart, she heard the ping indicating an incoming signal.  She opened the communications channel.

"I'm here," she said.

"I have something for you," Scarlet said, her smile pleasant and somehow unnerving.  "I suggest you take it to Squall."

The file transfer dialogue opened, and Quistis accepted.  When the picture came in, it displayed on the _Ragnarok's _heads-up display, so Quistis could see it without taking her eyes off her flying.  Nevertheless, when she saw the picture, her hands fell off the controls, causing the ship to drop into hover mode to compensate.

Quistis looked at the picture again, to make sure her eyes didn't deceive her.  When she reexamined the picture, she took up the controls once more, pressing the engine as hard as possible to prompt her return to Garden.


	23. Once in a Lifetime

Squall stood outside the doors of his office, glaring at the electronic lock.  Following dinner, they'd told him to get some rest – a notion he deplored, considering that he'd had nothing but rest since fighting Mallis in the past.  He'd waited for a while, then returned to his office, intending to continue catching up on work.

But they'd changed the lock on him.  Locked him out of his own office.

Never one to yield in the face of adversity, Squall reached inside his jacket pocket and produced a slim black case.  He opened it and pulled out a small screwdriver.  He removed the screws on the card reader and cast aside the exterior panel, exposing the internal wiring.  Squall replaced the screwdriver in the case and reached for the wire cutters.  He took a moment to study the complex network of wires, then, coming to a decision, snipped two open and touched the exposed ends together.

As he waited, unsure if he'd succeeded in his task, Squall put the wire cutters back into place and secured the case inside his jacket.  The door slid open before him.  Squall smiled to himself and moved inside.

He flipped on the light switch and gasped in surprise.

"Hey, stranger," Selphie said, grinning, reclining in his chair and resting her feet on his desk.

"What are you doing in my office?" Squall asked.

"I think the more relevant question," she said, "is 'what are _you _doing in your office?'"

"I have work to do," he replied.

"You're supposed to be resting," she shot back.  "That was the idea of locking you out."

"Did you really believe that would stop me?"

She shook her head.  "Not at all.  I counted on it."

Squall cocked his head, quizzical.

"You have many positive traits, Squall Leonhart," she laughed, "but spontaneity is not one of them."

"So what are you doing in my office?" he asked again.

Selphie shrugged.  "Waiting for you."

"Any particular reason?"

"Yessir.  I'd like to talk."

Squall nodded.  "Upstairs?"

"Perfect."

Selphie bounced to her feet and followed Squall up the stairs.  Squall grabbed his remote control and aimed it at the stereo.  Smooth, cool jazz filtered out of the speakers, and he stretched out on the couch, staring up at the ceiling.  Selphie moved to the loveseat opposite the couch and, slipping out of her shoes, took a seat, folding her legs underneath her.

"So what's up?" he asked.

Selphie crossed her arms over her chest and took a deep breath. 

"Y'ever have one of those things you have to say but you can't manage to find the words?"

Squall laughed once, glancing over at her.  "That pretty much sums up my whole life."

Selphie smiled.  "Okay.  Let's start with the easy stuff.  It's good to have you back.  You gave us all quite a scare.  And... it just wasn't the same without you here.  You're... more than part of the team.  You're the heart of the team.  You're our leader.  Without you..."  She shrugged, unsure of how to continue.

"And, without you here...  I...  It..."  She sighed.  "Put it this way: things haven't been easy."

"Well...  Here I am," he replied.

"Yeah," she nodded, smiling a little.  "Here you are."

Squall sat up, facing her.  Selphie dropped her legs to the floor, unintentionally mirroring his body language.

"Selphie, what's wrong?" he asked.

She looked at the ceiling before meeting his gaze.  "We... what happened before...  Oh, shit.  How do I say this?"

She chewed the inside of her cheek for a second.  "Balamb Garden fell.  Mallis killed the junior cadets.  And I went numb.  Absolutely numb.  You could have slammed my fingers in the door and I wouldn't have noticed.  Or cared.

"I tried to drink, to make myself forget.  It was like... if I medicated myself enough, at least I'd have an excuse for being numb.

"And then, in the wreckage of everything I'd ever cared about... I found you.  Everything seemed so hollow, so meaningless.  But you were... real.  And for the first time since the fall, I could feel again.  I saw the world through your eyes and I suffered with you.

"More than that, you gave me something to believe in.  Everyone else was standing in place, but you...  You kept on fighting.  You fought that battle every second of every day, and I imagined...  I don't know.  Sometimes I imagined I was protecting you.  Sometimes I imagined you rescuing me.  Whatever.  The point is, you made me feel again.  I cared.  I mattered.  When everything else was spinning out of control, you made sense.  I could anchor myself to you."

"Why do I sense a 'but' coming up?" Squall asked.

Selphie chuckled a little.  "Very perceptive."

She sighed again before continuing.  "While you were... under, I wound up talking to your father—"

One of Squall's eyebrows shot up in alarm.  "You went to _Laguna _for advice?"

"Yes and no," she smiled.  "Not _for _advice.  But we wound up talking about things, and he helped me put things straight."

"Such as?"

Selphie sat up straight, resting her hands on her knees and looking directly at Squall.  She took another deep breath.

"What I feel for you isn't romantic.  Maybe it is, a little, but that's just a little bit of it.  You're my friend and my CO.  I'd follow you to hell and back, and there's nothing I wouldn't do for you.  But I don't see things between us ever progressing beyond harmless flirtation."

"Flirtation?"

Selphie rolled her eyes and grinned, the smile making her eyes sparkle.  "Oh, come on, Squall!"  She fluttered her eyelids.  "'This place is so much bigger than my last Garden!  Do you think you could give me a quick tour?'  I'm a SeeD!  You think I can't read a freakin' map?"

A corner of Squall's mouth turned up at the memory.

"And you're just as guilty," she continued.

"Excuse me?" he asked, surprised.

She waved her hand in dismissal.  "Squall, how many people have you _ever _given directions to – _ever_, in your entire life?"

He thought for a moment, frowning.  "Two."

"And the other?"

His voice dropped, knowing she'd trapped him.  "Rinoa," he mumbled.

"Exactly," she said.  "So you can't pretend to be wholly innocent when it comes to flirting with me."

"Granted."

"Anyway.  That's how I see our relationship.  Flirtation, but nothing more.  Who do I want to lead me into battle?  Who do I want to take me back to Balamb Garden?  You.  But who do I want to date?  Irvine."

She paused, thinking for a moment.

"And I think you feel the same way."

Both of Squall's eyebrows responded to this.  "I want to date Irvine?"

"_No_," she said.  "You want to date Rinoa.  You're her Knight, and nothing is going to change that.  When she was lost, you were the one who saved her.  And she saved you, too.  If you think about this – the way I have – I think you'll come to the same conclusion.  She's your Sorceress.  Your princess.  And you wouldn't have it any other way."

Selphie stood up and crossed to Squall, placing a delicate kiss on his cheek.  "But you kept me sane when I needed it most, and I'll never forget that.  And... you should know that you're my hero.  Nothing will ever change that."  She wrapped her arms around him in a long hug.

Squall smiled.  "Thank you," he said, placing his hand on the back of her head.  He pulled away, looking her in the eyes.  "I hope you'll keep the necklace as... a reminder."

Her eyes widened.  "Damn straight I'll keep it!" she exclaimed.  "You can have it back when you pry it out of my cold, dead hands."

He pursed his lips, smiling only with his eyes.  "That can be arranged."

Selphie stood up, smoothing her skirt.

"We're okay?" she asked.

"Absolutely."

"Good," she nodded.

Just then, they heard the sound of footsteps ascending the stairs to the top floor of the office.

"Squall?  Squall, are you up here?" Quistis called.

"Here," he replied, rising to his feet.

Quistis clutched a file folder in one hand, brushing a strand of hair back with the other.

"You need to look at this," she said, pressing the folder at him.  "It's urgent."

He took the folder and glanced inside.

He blinked, and his mouth opened.  He didn't react for a long moment.

"I..." he murmured.  "I..."

  
The folder fluttered from his hands, dropping to the ground.  Squall left the room without further comment.

"What—?" Selphie asked, kneeling down to glance at the contents of the folder.

Her breath caught in her throat as she saw what Squall had seen.

A picture of the hangar at Balamb Garden.  The unmistakable profile of the _Apocalypse _dominated the frame.  And walking down the gangplank, in shackles, surrounded by armed guards: Rinoa.

AN:  You know, it seems like I always fall back on the same excuses when I take a long time with chapters – exams and wrong turns in the writing.  This has never been the case more than in this chapter.

Exams this term totally kicked my butt.  And I have _never _had a more troublesome chapter than this one.  It was so easy to get Squall and Selphie into this mess, but they were damned reluctant to get out of it.  I'm pleased with the result, and hope you find it worth the wait.


	24. Adagio

**Interlude**

I'm standing outside the door to her room.  I don't know what pulled me here, but it seems like I can't leave without saying goodbye.  My friends are my family.  My students are my students.  I stand outside her door, and I realize Tia has blurred the line.

I knock on the door and it hums, sliding open in front of me.  She looks surprised to see me, but her eyes are a little bloodshot.  She's over-studying.

"Instruc—" she starts, but I cut her off.  We've had this talk in the past.

"Quistis," I say.  "Just Quistis."

"Quistis," she agrees.  She bobs her head as she says it.  It looks like she's bowing to me.  There was a time when I was this deferential.

"May I?" I ask, pointing into her room.  She blinks, once, shocked, but recovers her composure.

"Sure.  I mean... Please, come in."

She steps aside to let me through and I enter her dorm room.  It's small.  The here rooms are larger than the rooms at Balamb Garden, and they're still small.  I almost stagger when I see the second bed.  I'd forgotten what it was to be a cadet: sharing a room the size of a prison cell with a person you spend all day trying to out-perform.

The thing that hits me is the fact that the other side of the room – the side belonging to Tia's roommate – is empty.  No sheets on the bed.  Nothing on the desk.

"My roommate..." she starts.

"Moved out because you studied too much," I finish.  I know the drill.

"Yeah.  Can I offer you a seat?" she asks.

I nod, pulling out the chair from the empty desk.  It's a dorm chair, and I can tell.  At this point in my life, I've been in all four Gardens.  The chairs feel the same.  They make you sit up just straight enough that you can't feel comfortable, but not enough to promote good posture.  SeeD is the second most powerful military force on the planet, even after the fall of Balamb Garden,.  Galbadia beats us by sheer weight of numbers.  Esthar is catching up fast, but still can't compete.  So, we're the second most powerful military force on the planet.  We're a mercenary organization with earning power to rival most corporations.  We _own _corporations as fronts and revenue generators.  Why do we subject our best and brightest to furniture that's less comfortable than a bed of nails?

Cid's admonishment rings in my ears.  "Things are done the way things are done," he'd always say.  Without even trying, I can name a dozen instances where he explained away some point of procedure with that little gem.

"I saw the Department Request forms the cadets filled out.  You opted for Intelligence."

She nods.  She thinks I'm mad at her.  I'm the head of the Science, Support, Technology, and Magic Department.  She thinks I expected her to follow my lead.

"It's a good choice.  Selphie's the best department head we have.  She's already decided to recruit you."

She brightens.  "Really?"

"Yes.  You're a natural.  You'll fit in well."

She's exuberant.  I seem to have made her day.  This makes the rest of the conversation more difficult.  I decide to stall a little longer.

"Why Intelligence?"

Her eyes flicker to the ground for the span of a heartbeat.  Her head tilts slightly.  She's good.  Her nostrils don't flare.  Her breathing remains steady.  The blush doesn't even creep up her cheeks.

She's good.  She'll fit in very well with the Intelligence Department.  I'm better.  That glance gave it away.  I know what she's covering.  I know that pain.

"You've already read my file.  My life before Garden."  A less gifted student would deadpan this.  Or say it too emphatically.  She does neither.  It's just another noncommittal statement.

She's _very_ good.  I'm still better.

"I haven't."  It's not a lie.  Most of the kids at Garden come from nightmarish backgrounds.  I should know.  I'm a prime example.  "What you did before Garden is only as relevant as you make it."

I don't talk about this with very many people.  I never even discussed it with Matron, even after the Ultimecia thing.  She'd feel terrible if she knew.  Xu knows.  And Seifer.  Scarlet probably knows too.  In Tia's case, I'll break my own rule.  I know what it is to be ashamed of your past.  She needs to know that I know.

"When I was very young, I was in an orphanage.  From that orphanage, I was adopted by a couple from Deling City.  I was their last stab at reconciliation.  It didn't work.  I was their pawn.  When they weren't attacking me, they used me to attack each other.  Neither one liked the fact that I could see through them.  On my tenth birthday I walked out, taking with me nothing but the clothes on my back.  I enrolled at Garden that day."

I've hit home.  She's looking at me through wounded eyes.  She doesn't want to tell me, but she will.

"I grew up on the streets of Deling City," she says.  Her eyes fade out of focus and I watch her remember.  "No family.  No orphanage.  Only three rules: don't starve, don't freeze, don't get caught."

"Once in a while, when I was picking food out of an alley trash-can, I'd go so far as to look out onto the main streets of the city.  And every single time I looked, I'd see a procession of long black limousines.  Cars more expensive and luxurious than I ever dreamed.  All in a line, stretching as far as the eye could see in either direction."

Her lip has curled.  She's discarded socially-acceptable self-pity and is moving on to what truly motivates her: unbridled rage and uncontrolled fear.  When she had no control over her environment, she established control by being the best.  My protégé indeed.

"Vinzer Deling."  She infuses the words with a truly impressive amount of venom.  "If he had sold just one of those cars, I wouldn't have to starve.  No more fighting for scraps.  No more digging through trashcans.  But that was never part of the agenda.  Buy more, spend more, shove the undesirables where the decent folk won't have to see them.

"Those of us who lived on the street developed little... quirks.  Places to hide when the wind got too fierce.  Someone we knew wouldn't turn us in to Deling's thugs.  My place was the Great Library, and my person one of the librarians.

"She felt sorry for me, so she let me hide out in the library when the weather turned ugly.  After a while, I started going there on the nice days, too.  She taught me to read.  And I read everything.  Every book they had, every magazine.  Back issues of newspapers.  Genealogical records. Court documents.  Laws.  Trashy romance novels.  I didn't care."

It took her away from the agony of her life.  I don't need to explain this to her.  We both understand.  It taught her how to survive.  The knowledge gave her power.  We both understand that, too.

"Her daughter had grown up, so I got her hand-me-downs.  They were the first possessions I didn't have to steal.  One night, I was flying high.  I felt so pretty in my new clothes that I decided to walk down one of the main streets.  I wanted to see the parade."

A tingle moves up my body.  I can't tell if I'm thrilled or terrified.  The machinations of fate never fail to amaze.  Scarlet would approve.

She's trembling now.  I know what's coming next – I was there.  Through her eyes, I experience it anew.  She's just shown me a whole new way in which to examine one of the seminal evenings of my life.

"That night, the Sorceress killed Vinzer Deling.  The official line was that she'd put everyone under her spell, and that's why the crowd was cheering – we were hypnotized."

Her voice drops into a low whisper and I find I am leaning in to catch her words.  She's quite the storyteller.  Selphie doesn't know what a prize she's claiming.  For an instant, I try to concoct some excuse to poach her for the sake of my own department, but she resumes her story and the moment is gone.

"But I was in the crowd that night.  I know.  We cheered because he deserved it."

Her eyes widen, telling me that the best part of the story is yet to come.

"And then, _he_ appeared.  Commander Leonhart.  He sliced through that crowd like the people were made of paper.  Some of them just... instinctively ran from him, and the rest he moved aside.  It was... awesome.  I wanted that power for myself."

I admire her choice of words.  "Awesome."  She doesn't cheapen it by using the slang definition.  She means "something that inspires awe."  I watched Squall that night – as I did on so many others.  Few words better approximate that moment.

"The next day, I asked my librarian about what had happened.  She told me about the Gardens and SeeD.  I knew a little about them from my reading, but she let me know I would be eligible for enrollment as a disadvantaged youth.  She offered to drive me to Galbadia Garden, but I refused.  I'd had enough of Galbadia.  The Garden was just an extension of Vinzer Deling.

"I'd spent enough nights in the cold, so Trabia wasn't an option.  I sold what little I owned to pay for a train ticket to Balamb.  She loaned me the rest of the money, and I promised to repay her with my first paycheck."

The clock in my head tells me time is running short.  I need to refocus the conversation.  Wrap up this line of discussion so I can say what I have to say.

"How do you feel about the new Galbadian government?"

A fairly safe question.  Somewhat detached from her personal experience.  A good way to defuse her anger.

She scoffs in response.  "The names have changed.  Everything else is the same."

I nod.  Given my personal experiences with the government of the Galbadian Republic, I would be hard pressed to disagree.

She sensed the intent behind the question.  She handles conversation like an expert.  She knows when to lead and when to follow.

"To answer your question, I requested to join Intelligence because, for years, that's what I did.  I watched.  I listened.  I saw.  I understood.  But when you're a homeless child on the streets of Deling City, it doesn't matter what you've seen.  Intelligence will change all that.  Instructor Tilmitt once said that information is the currency of the Intelligence Department.  I plan to be rich."

I nod.  It's as good a reason as any.  We all had our foibles when it came to choosing departments.  I opted for SSTM because it offered me an opportunity to pursue my more esoteric interests.  Seifer opted for Security because it was the most demanding and least-appreciated department.  Zell opted for Combat because he wanted to follow in his grandfather's footsteps.

I glance up at Tia.  She knows I didn't come to talk about her choice of departments.  She's waiting for me to explain my presence.  I don't blame her.

"I'm going away," I tell her.  "On a mission.  We all are.  The First Team."  I pause, not wanting to add the necessary qualification.  "We might not be coming back."

"Is—?  I mean, are—?"  She doesn't want to say it.

"We're going back to Balamb Garden.  We're going to kill them or they're going to kill us.  That's pretty much it."

"Is this confidential?  Do I need to observe the security protocols?"

I don't need to consult the other members of the First Team.  None of us care anymore.  We just want to end it.  

"No.  It doesn't matter now."  

I've gotten used to hero-worship.  And the Trepies with their fawning adoration.  But she's looking at me with something akin to... reverence.  In another context, I might appreciate it.  Tonight, though...  I'd better cut to the chase.

It's the central paradox of teaching that you're always working to make yourself obsolete.  So, one final lesson before the great Instructor fades into the sunset.

"Tia, you have a brilliant future ahead of you.  I have no doubt that, one day, you will surpass everything I have accomplished."

"I could never—!" she objects.  "I mean, how could anyone...?"

I laugh a little.  "It will happen, Tia.  Sooner or later, someone will outdo whatever I have accomplished.  I want it to be – I expect it will be – you.  I don't want to be the next Edmund Roni."

She's perplexed.  "Who's Edmund Roni?"

"When I was a cadet, he was the greatest SeeD ever.  He joined SeeD at the tender young age of 16 – the youngest to date.  First cadet to test directly into the SD-10 pay grade.  Made instructor by 18 – again, the youngest to date.  First SeeD _ever_ to hold the SD-A pay grade."

"What happened to him?"

"I did.  SeeD at 15, tested into the SD-13 pay grade, instructor by 17.  I was the second SeeD to hold the SD-A grade.  Now, everyone on the First Team holds that rank plus additional bonuses."

"But where is he?  Where did he go?"

"I shattered his records and he was never the same.  Former headmaster Kramer gave him a 'long term deep-cover assignment.'  He's in semi-official retirement now.  The only SeeD drawing a pension.  Selphie heard that he's a beekeeper in Winhill."

She's looking at me like I'm going to reveal life's deepest mysteries to her.

What do I say?  I've killed a lot of people.  So many I stopped counting.  And I never felt guilty about it.  Guilt is a luxury I can rarely afford.  Certainly not tonight.  What do I tell her?  I've only regretted killing one man.  And he's still alive.

I stand and head for the door.  As I pass by, I place my hand on her shoulder.

"I expect great things, Tia.  You won't disappoint me.  Couldn't if you tried."

It's weak, I know.  I'm tapped out.  

"Come back safe," she says.

"I'll try."

It's all I can think of.

Sorry, kid.  Lecture over.  Class dismissed.  

*          *

**Earlier**

"I'm sending the picture now," Quistis said, hitting the buttons needed to transfer it to Xu at Garden ground control.  A moment passed, and she heard Xu's sharp intake of breath.

"Son of a bitch," she murmured.

"I know," Quistis scowled.  "That was my reaction."

"What do you want to do about it?" Xu asked.

"Scramble the First Team and have them waiting in the hangar.  Have a crew standing by to resupply the _Ragnarok_.  I have a feeling we'll be going right back up again."

"Do you want me to take this to him?"

"No," Quistis answered.  "I'll do it.  His first instinct will be to run off by himself and deal with this, especially since Seifer's proven that it's possible.  We can't afford that.  We get exactly one chance at this.  Seifer already screwed up our chances of going in through the Training Center, so stealth isn't an option."

"About that," Xu ventured.  "Since Seifer and Fujin made their reports, I've been thinking about this.  How this should go down.  Reviewing the data from the fall and looking at the security feeds.  I think I have a plan."

"Let's hear it."

"How do you feel about dividing our forces?"


	25. Memento Mori

Rinoa sat, bound but not uncomfortable, in a chair atop the central spire of Balamb Garden. It seemed like she could look over the whole continent, but she found herself in no mood to enjoy the view. She took a quick glance around. She saw an empty weapons rack and a stainless steel table, the kind used in operating rooms.

The door to the roof opened, and General Mallis came through, dressed in polished black armor.

"My dear Ms. Heartilly," he smiled. "So nice to see you again."

He looked out over the horizon, watching the clouds in the distance. Mallis took a deep breath.

"There's a storm coming," he said.

Rinoa's jaw locked. "You have no idea."

Mallis whirled on her. "You think your Knight will come rescue you?" he asked.

"I know he will," she replied, voice never wavering.

Mallis's smile cracked wide open, grinning in madness. "My dear," he hissed, "I'm counting on it."

Rinoa's eyes widened as she saw what Mallis held in his hands: a massive sword, fully eight feet long and two feet wide. It didn't end in a point, but rather with a blunt, square edge. Its purpose seemed abundantly clear to Rinoa: dismemberment. Mallis practically dragged it behind him, and she could see the effort it took to maneuver the thing.

"You're looking at this?" he inquired. His hands glowed with purple fire. The fire spread from his hands and ran the length of his blade as Mallis lifted the sword for her inspection. It seemed lighter now.

"It is called The Scar," he said. "And it is as old as humanity itself."

Rinoa didn't react.

"You know, of course, the legend of Hyne?"

Rinoa nodded. "Hyne grew tired of fighting monsters and created humans before going to sleep. When Hyne awoke, he was alarmed by the number of humans and attempted to control the population by taking the children. The humans retaliated and hunted Hyne, who escaped by surrendering half of his body. This half has somehow become the power that... fuels Sorcery."

"That is the myth, yes," he nodded. "The truth is rarely so straightforward."

"_You_ want to tell me the truth?" she laughed.

Mallis shrugged. "I can't force you to believe me."

"But you can force me to listen," she replied.

Mallis's mouth turned up a little. "The legends would have you believe that Hyne was the creator of this world. That is not necessarily true. The world is much, much older than that. Untold eons ago, this world was inhabited by beings of untold power. Elemental spirits. Creatures that wielded magic on a scale we can't imagine."

"Guardian Forces," Rinoa mumbled.

"Eidolons. Aeons. Espers. The nomenclature is inconsequential," Mallis shrugged. "This was their world. The creature we call Leviathan labored over the tides. Ifrit heated vast sheets of rock and the Brothers split them into continents. Shiva's breath cooled the surface of the planet. Eden set the stars in their courses and set the gradual hand of fate into motion. The Cactuar coaxed life out of every plant. There were countless others, but the ones we know today were among the most influential."

"And Hyne?" she asked.

"Hyne was one of them. A minor functionary of Eden, actually, one of those responsible for ensuring the course of fate ran smoothly. But..."

"But?"

"At a certain point, Hyne detected... an anomaly. A knot in the tapestry, if you will. A flaw in the cool precision of order."

"What was the flaw?"

"He couldn't say. None of them could. Eden knew, perhaps, but it was as inscrutable then as now. None of the Eidolons could tell how to resolve the problem. Should they take action? Should they wait it out? None of them knew. There were a few certainties."

"Such as?"

"The knot was fast approaching, and whatever it was, it would be monumental. And... whatever the nature of the knot, humans were at the center of it."

"But we didn't exist!" she exclaimed.

"Not as such," Mallis admitted. "We had ancestors. Crude, unintelligent brutes. We had not even advanced far enough to become cavemen at the time."

"Wait," Rinoa said. "If this was their world, why were we here?"

"We had a role in the natural order, just like the other animals. That's what we were – animals. They created us to be one more gear in the clockwork universe that they built for themselves. But somehow... we found ourselves at the center of a very big storm."

"What did they do?" she asked.

"They debated. Humans – like the other animals – had a course charted for them. Over time, we would grow, and change. Mature as a species. It would take hundreds of millions of years, but eventually, we would become modern man. Intelligent and inspired. Capable of great works of beauty. The majority of the Espers refused to believe that we could cause the destruction they foresaw.

"And Hyne proposed a radical solution: accelerate the development. Reweave the tapestry. Give us the wisdom and insight prematurely, and let us find our own way past the storm. This was not a popular notion."

"Understandably."

"When the debate ended, the lines had been drawn. The most ancient and powerful Aeons – the Guardian Forces of today – voted in favor of nonintervention. Bahamut himself decreed that humanity would remain untouched. The younger generation wanted to intervene. They believed that it was the only way to save us – and themselves. Unbidden, Hyne and his followers – amounting to a third of the existing Eidolons – manifested to our ancestors. They gave us the gifts of reason. Language. Memory. All those things that make us truly human. But in doing so, they violated Bahamut's law."

"What happened?"

"War. A war the likes of which the world has not seen since. A war that leveled mountains and blasted away forests. In the conflict, a massive piece of earth was ripped away and cast into space, becoming our moon. This resulted in the destruction of Leviathan's carefully structured oceans, and the kingdom of the summons disappeared under the waves."

Rinoa nodded. "Which is why we found an entire city beneath the Deep Sea Research Facility. That's where we located Bahamut. And Eden."

Mallis smiled. "Clever girl. More than that, the force of the conflict sundered this world. It originally connected with countless other worlds. They... overlapped."

"Overlapped?" Rinoa cocked her head.

Mallis looked skyward and pursed his lips. "Imagine... a symphony. The piano plays a melody. The brass plays a melody. Percussion, strings, woodwinds. They all play at once, and create a harmonious sound. That is how our world once was."

"And now?"

"The force of the conflict shattered this symphony. We're locked in a room by ourselves, playing our melody, unsure of the fate of the rest of the musicians. They still exist, no doubt, and I'm sure their legends run parallel to ours. The spirit of ice may not be a frozen queen, as ours is, but it will still be Shiva. The images and names can be different, but the entity is the same."

"And what came of this war?"

"The world the Aeons saw was nothing but a shadow of what it once was. Whatever attraction our world once held for them, it was gone. The watch had run down. Bahamut ordered the withdrawal of his troops, and they simply... departed. Packed up and left.

"Odin remained, for reasons known only to him. It is said that he quarreled with Bahamut over this point. Bahamut said he was willing to force Odin out of this world if need be. Odin placed his hand on his sword and invited Bahamut to try. That was the last they spoke of the issue."

"What happened to the rebels?"

"They, naturally, were no longer welcome among their fellows. Bahamut decreed that, since mankind was so precious to the rebels, they should spend all eternity among us. They were exiled to the many worlds created in the war. Hyne had the misfortune to be banished here."

"So the monsters he fought...?"

"Correct. They were what we call Guardian Forces. The great 'god' Hyne is nothing more than an exile, banished here in the wake of a cosmic mistake. All the rest is mythological whitewash."

"So how did Hyne get to the point where humanity hunted him?" Rinoa asked.

"Some of Hyne's followers retreated to the moon. You saw their legacy in the Lunar Cry. Others buried themselves among humanity. Eventually, they tried to breed with us. The results have not been pretty."

Rinoa raised an eyebrow.

"Every monster you've ever seen – from the tiniest bite bug to the most massive ruby dragon – can be traced to the exiles."

"What happened to Hyne?"

"After the war, he was understandably exhausted. With his waning strength, he constructed a tomb for himself, and... settled in for a nap. His last instructions to his beloved humans were that they never disturb him in his tomb. He had failed, however, to calculate the cost of his actions."

"Cost?"

Mallis smiled, lips pulling tight across his face. "He bestowed tremendous power on an infant race. When he... exalted us, we were little more than animals. Predators. Hunters. And to our race, he granted emotion. Creativity. The ability to use tools. The ability to think.

"So there we were. Savage predators suddenly given the ability to create tools and besieged by monsters we had no hope of combating. It was only natural that our first instinct would be to create weapons. Weapons to hunt our prey. Weapons to hunt each other. War followed upon war. Brutalities inflicted for countless generations, with each man's child becoming a more capable killer than his father.

"And somewhere, deep in our ancestral memory, we knew who to blame. We knew who made us what we were, who created the monsters, and who had the power to put it all right again."

"We went into the tomb."

Mallis nodded. "We went in to claim Hyne's power for ourselves. We he awoke, he was enraged beyond all measure. He should have foreseen the consequences. If you give a loaded gun to a four year old, you shouldn't be surprised when someone gets shot.

"But Hyne believed he gave up everything for us. He forsook the society of his brothers to bring us intelligence. He waged a war so that we might remain free. And now we had the good grace to repay him as a mob of angry peasants."

"So he came for the children."

"More than the children. He came for our future. He came to let us know that what he had given us, he could just as easily take away."

"And we fought back."

"With help. Bahamut, the legends say, is a good ruler. But an exceedingly harsh one. Not one to forgive grudges. He saw events transpiring and took action."

"But—"

Mallis held up a finger to stop her. "The exile applied only to the rebels. While the worlds were irrevocably sundered, the loyalists – Bahamut's faction – could travel between them as easily as you or I walk across the street.

"The ancient Aeons collaborated, as they had so long ago. Where they once worked together to create a world, this time, they forged a blade. One made with the express purpose of killing Hyne. When the blade had cooled, Diablos, Bahamut's Dark Messenger, carried the blade to our world, and placed it in the hands of a woman named Khagrim. She, in turn, gave it to her lover, the warrior Yran.

"Together, they hunted down Hyne – not a difficult task, given his weakened state."

"And they... cut him?"

Mallis lifted the glowing blade again. "They cut him in half with one slice." He turned to her, his eye gleaming. "And this is the blade they used."

Rinoa swallowed.

"What happened to Hyne after that?"

He shrugged. "No one knows. It is not easy to kill a god. Perhaps he simply crawled off somewhere to die. Perhaps he managed to escape this world. Perhaps he fled somewhere to heal himself. It doesn't matter. As far as this planet is concerned, he is well and truly dead."

Mallis paused for a moment before starting up again. "For whatever reason," he continued, "Hyne's powers transferred into Khagrim. And she became the first Sorceress."

"And Yran was the first Knight," Rinoa finished.

"Exactly. Only those touched by Hyne can wield this blade. Normal men cannot even lift it," he said.

"Why are you telling me this?" Rinoa whispered.

He gripped the blade in both hands and swung it experimentally.

"I want you to understand," he said, "that when your Knight comes to rescue you, he will die. It is inevitable. Because this is the sword that killed a god."


	26. Barracuda

The group assembled in the hangar, standing in the shadow of the _Ragnarok._  Squall stood off to one side, disconnected from the others, his right hand clenched into a fist.  Seifer held Hyperion to the light, watching it gleam as Fujin and Raijin flanked him.

Quistis entered and crossed to Xu.  She leaned in to apologize to her friend.

"Sorry I'm late," Quistis whispered.

"Everything okay?"

"Yeah," she replied.  "Just... saying goodbye."

"Okay, everyone," Xu said, addressing the group.  "We're all here.  Nida, are the preparations complete?"

Nida nodded.  "_Discovery _is loaded and the flight check is done.  Give us the green light."

"We're all anxious to get airborne," Xu said, glancing at Squall, "so we'll do the briefing in the air.  Board up and we'll get going."

The First Team started to board.  Fujin started for the gangplank, but Seifer turned to stop her.

"Sorry, babe," he said.  "You have to sit this one out."

"UNACCEPTABLE," she snarled.

Xu stepped over to intervene.

"Fujin, you're not part of the mission profile.  You can't come with us."

"UNACCEPTABLE," she said again, a dangerous edge creeping into her voice.  "PERSONAL."

"I understand that," Xu said.  "Mallis has one goal: the revival of Adel.  Two do that, he needs two things, you and Rinoa.  He already has one of them.  If we bring you into play, it's all over."

"BUT—"

"Fujin, look", Seifer said, turning to her and placing his hand on the side of her face.  "Mallis's goal is to get Rinoa's powers into you.  For whatever reason, he believes this will make you into some kind of... reincarnated Adel.  As it stands now, he can't do that.  If we get you two in the same place, he'll just start slaughtering everyone he can find until Rinoa gives up her powers.  There are a lot of people in Garden, and we have to consider their lives as well.  You _know _he'll slaughter them wholesale if he thinks it'll help."

Fujin seethed, clearly displeased with the persuasiveness of Seifer's argument.  Nevertheless, she relented.

"UNDERSTOOD."

"And you," Seifer shifted his gaze to Raijin and crossed to him.  Seifer reached into a pocket of his coat and produced an envelope.  The back had a wax seal emblazoned with the cruciform sword.  "Over the years, I've stashed away some cash.  This envelope contains instructions on how to get to it.  If – for whatever reason – we don't come back, you take her and you go to ground.  You hide her.  You protect her.  You _protect _her.  And if anything happens to her, I swear by all that's holy I'll come back from the grave and haunt you until the day you die."

Raijin nodded gravely, understanding his charge.

"Don't worry about it," he said, the normally boisterous tone gone from his voice.  He put his arm around Fujin.  "I'll guard her like... like..." He shook his head.  "Don't worry about it."

Seifer wrapped an arm around each of his friends and they leaned in, the Posse literally putting their heads together.  They stood like that for a moment, not speaking or moving.  Then, Seifer broke away from them.

"Okay," he said, turning to Xu.  "Ready to go."

Xu nodded, speaking to the group once more.  "See you onboard."

The First Team boarded the ship with the rest of their gear.  After stowing it, they all moved to the meeting room aboard the _Ragnarok _and took their seats as the ship left the hangar.  Nida joined the group in the meeting room while one of his lieutenants piloted the ship.  Xu took her place at the head of the room, putting her materials on the lectern they'd had installed for briefings like this one. 

"Here we go," she said, pressing a button on the lectern.  The window behind her darkened, and a display flared across it, playing a composite of images from the fall of Balamb Garden.

"During his time as Garden Master, Mallis had ample time to review Balamb Garden's defenses.  In doing so, he came to the same conclusion Seifer did when planning the Garden Wars: Balamb Garden is subject to a sudden, intense siege supported by overwhelming numbers."

Long used to her style of briefing, the group allowed Xu her introductory remarks.  Some other squads disliked her method of briefing, but most of the squads under her supervision preferred it to the Cid Kramer model of briefing.  A model that included no more information than strictly necessary and left little room for questions or clarifications.

"In keeping with this model, he hit us with an initial wave of soldiers and let us expend our energy fighting them.  When we started to mop up the first wave, he hit us again.  After that, it was just a simple matter of deluging us with soldiers.

"Make no mistake: if we had one cadet or SeeD for every soldier, we would have more than won the battle.  We would have routed them.  Unfortunately, they outnumbered us badly.  And as long as they continue to outnumber us, our efforts at retaking Garden are doomed to fail."

Squall, looking out the window, not listening to the briefing, glanced at Xu long enough to frown a little.  Then, his eyes shifted back away from her.

"So we take out The Storm!" Zell said.

"Exactly."

"How do we do that?" Irvine ventured.  "I mean, if the whole reason they won is because of overwhelming numbers..."

"Also true.  They have a decisive numerical advantage.  In this particular mission, we're looking at 2275 of them to 6 of us.  Approximately 380 to 1."

Selphie's hand shot up as she looked around the room.  "Six?" she asked.  "But there're eight of us here."

"Squall and Nida have vital roles to fill, but are not a part of this mission."

Squall continued staring out the window.  Nida looked shocked.

"Your help has already been invaluable, Nida," she continued.  "And I have two more assignments for you.  Hopefully, you won't have to carry out the second.

"The first is as the primary pilot of this ship.  You will be responsible for piloting on the final approach to Balamb Garden."

"And after that?" he asked.

"You take this ship and return to Garden.  And then you wait."

"That's it?  You want me to wait?"

Quistis nodded, following her friend's reasoning.  "Because if we don't come back..."

"Correct."  Xu fixed Nida with her gaze.  "If we don't come back, command passes to you.

"But I'm getting ahead of myself.  Let's brief the mission before we discuss contingencies."

Xu straightened her notes – unnecessary since they hadn't fallen out of order – and resumed.

"As I've said, The Storm possesses the advantage of numbers.  This is also its liability.  The Storm is simply too big to garrison at Balamb Garden.  The Garden itself is guarded by a relatively small force used mostly to keep the hostages in line.  A force small enough to render it vulnerable to our traditional methods of attack.

"The Storm itself is housed off-site.  It is a reserve force, to be summoned once we arrive and used to trap us at Garden."

"We take them out at the same time," Seifer said.

Xu nodded.

"All well and good," Irvine said, "but I'm still waitin' for the 'how' of this little venture."

"Once again, the essential weakness of The Storm is its inherent nature.  It has become a reserve force, to be summoned in case of invasion.  We exploit this fact and turn it against The Storm."

Irvine spread his hands, still waiting for an explanation.

"Nida and I did some research into The Storm.  It originally consisted of 298 ships."

"You told me 297," Quistis said.

"We were wrong," Xu explained, pressing a button on the lectern.  The display changed, showing a massive airship, roughly the size of a small city.  A fleet of The Storm's dropships swirled around it, dwarfed in comparison.

"This is the _Cumulonimbus_," she continued.  "It represents the pinnacle of Esthar's military power.  It was designed as a... mobile palace for Adel.  It could house the entirety of The Storm, the _Ragnarok _and her two sister-ships, the body of Esthar's military and government... everything necessary to ensure the survival of the nation in case of, say, a revolution."

"But the nation didn't survive," Quistis objected.  "I mean, if it had, Adel would still be alive and we wouldn't be here."

"The ship had numerous problems.  It prompted the scientific exodus that led to the creation of FH.  A ship of this size demands a tremendous amount of energy to function."

"Mayor Dobe was doin' energy research before he left Esthar!" Zell exclaimed.

"He was the chief researcher.  Rumor has it that he solved the problem, but if he did, he took the answer with him to FH.  Running on limited power, the _Cumulonimbus_ made an easy target for the revolutionaries.  In a concentrated attack, they broke onboard, stole the _Revelation_-class warships, and destroyed the ship from the inside out.

Now, the reason I'm telling you about the _Cumulonimbus_ is that it comes into play again.  In its first few missions, The Storm quickly fell prey to a problem of its own.  The troop commands were handled from the cockpit of each individual ship.  One pilot who had to fly _and _release the troops.  With the help of a skilled sniper..."

Irvine made a gun with his hand.  "Bang."

"The ships crashed to the ground, killing everyone inside.  So Esthar tapped the original designer, who came up with the slave system."

No one asked the obvious question.  Xu continued without missing a beat.

"This system allows any of the individual ships of The Storm to be controlled from one master control panel.  They are all its slaves.  If the pilot is killed, the operator at the control panel can continue to use that ship.  The control is absolute.  He can force the troops to deploy, control their movement, order them into formation, anything."

"And this control panel was aboard the _Cumulonimbus_," Quistis offered.

"Precisely.  After the revolution, the time came to clean up the wreckage.  When the new government retrieved the ship, they found that it had been gutted.

"Including the slave system."

"We use the slave drive and smash the ships," Irvine shrugged.  "Not bad.  Where do we go."

Xu shifted topics again.

"This time, we look at another revolution.  Specifically, the formation of the Galbadian Republic.  The revolution orchestrated by Llyriance.

"When the Republic formed, they found themselves in dire financial straits.  The Delings were not economical leaders, and the nation was wildly in debt.  It had almost no hard currency and the situation was getting worse.  So they set out to rectify the situation."

Seifer laughed.  "What, did they file for bankruptcy?"

Xu shook her head.  "They held an 'everything must go' sale on an epic scale.  Everything they could think of was put up for auction on the international market.  Weapons and vehicles, works of art, sculptures...

"Many of the military items were purchased by Archimedes Arms, Inc.  This is owned by  Atlas Corp., a holding company.  It doesn't produce anything – it just owns.  It is in turn owned by another holding company.  And so on, for about seven levels until you get to Kronos Ltd, a truly massive company with fingers in everything.  If you look at what it owns, it's just an endless series of holding corporations.  But if you follow a particular trail long enough, you wind up with Videlic Arms."

"Owned by Mallis," Zell said.

"Archimedes bought a great deal of military equipment, including several large installations..."

Selphie sat upright.

"Say it," she hissed.

"They also bought several decommissioned bases, sites that Galbadia had long since abandoned.  Ostensibly, these would have been used as testing facilities."

"Say it," Selphie persisted, gripping the arms of her chair.  "Say it, don't hold out on me!"

"I looked at the purchases made by Archimedes and checked it against the size of The Storm.  Then, I narrowed the field using the power requirements for the slave system."

"You tracked 'em using a power bill?" Zell exclaimed.

"Quiet!" Selphie ordered.  "I want her to say it."

Xu spread her hands.  "What better place to hide a military base than a military base that's already been destroyed?"

"Booyaka," Selphie whispered, falling back in her chair and rubbing her hands together.  "I'm goin' back there and I'm gonna blow that place to smithereens all over again."


	27. Someone Else's Story

**Second Interlude**

As my hand touches the door, she jumps up.  "Wait!" she says.  "Quistis, please, wait."  She's standing there, pleading with me, one hand at her mouth, fingers touching her lips.  It's an unguarded moment.  You don't see many of those around here.  I wish I could frame this instant for her, so years down the road she can look back on who she once was.

No, I don't.  Because then she'll start thinking about who she's become.  That's not always a pretty picture.  SeeDs have about a thirty-year shelf life.  And the expiration date doesn't slide by quietly.  When I said we only have one SeeD drawing a pension, I wasn't kidding.  The graveyard keeps getting bigger, but the list of distinguished alumni rests at one.  On some level, I wanted to go that route.  Get an assignment teaching some theory class and move me away from the front lines.  Then, just... fade away.

"I wasn't...  I... I didn't tell you the whole story before," she says.  "About why I wanted Intelligence.  And I should."

"You don't owe me an explanation," I reply.

"It's not that."  She sinks back into her chair, but she's keeping me in the room with her gaze.  "I've never told anyone and...  I might not get another chance."

I nod, turning away from the door and easing myself back into the chair.  There's time.  I was trying to hurry out of here, get the end of the game underway, but... they'll wait for me.  Squall might put up a fuss, but the rest of the gang knows how to handle him by now.  I'm not the only one who can finish his sentences anymore.  And I think I like it that way.

"Just before the parade, before I really understood SeeD, I was in the Great Library.  And I was reading some society magazine, and they had an enormous article on an upcoming gala dinner for the Sorceress held by, you guessed it, Vinzer Deling.  It was her... debutante ball.  To induct her into the upper echelons of Galbadian society."  Her eyes fade again as the past takes over her mind.

"They had a fold-out section dedicated to the elite team of caterers Deling had hired for the party.  He couldn't be content with hiring just _one _caterer.  He needed to have the _very _best.  They had the Baron of Breads, who supervised the Earl of Éclaires and the Rajah of Rolls.  The Proconsul of Pepper and the Satrap of Salt both worked for the Chevalier of Condiments, who in turn worked for the Sultan of Seasoning.  They all had exalted titles like that, along with profiles in the magazine and pictures of their food."

Her mouth works a little bit and she swallows, and I know she's salivating at the memory of it.  Years of hunger are hard to erase, no matter what happens to you.

"Words can't describe it," she said.  "It was lavish by any standard, but for me, a lavish meal was half of a baked potato that someone didn't eat.

"I saw that food, and I got to thinking.  I went to bed every night with hunger pains so these people could have such opulence.  The very food that graced their tables was rightfully mine."

Her eyes flash up to me, angry, tempestuous.  Am I her friend?  Therapist?  Confessor?  Inquisitor?  Sometimes, it's hard for me to tell.  Sometimes, it doesn't matter.

"And how did they get all this money?  Were they better than I was?  Harder workers?  What did they do to earn the money?

"Nothing.  The Galbadian government has always been funded on simple concepts.  Tax the citizens into oblivion.  When we've taken all their money, shove them off to the side.  When there are too many of them to handle, declare a radical shift in ideology and hold mass executions.  While you're at it, declare the people who made it rich the last time the new enemies, and confiscate all their property in the name of social justice.  Lather.  Rinse.  Repeat."

Her voice falls so flat on these last three words that I almost hear a bell chime in the distance.  She's also pinpointed the exact heart of the Galbadian problem.  The last ten elected presidents were overthrown, to say nothing of the military dictatorships.

"Understand.  I don't hate rich people for being rich.  I hate – hated – the Galbadian rich."

She caught herself too late.  The _hate _is important.  Present tense.  Any other night, I'd file this away and mark it in her psych profile.  Have to keep an eye on the troops, you know.

"Potential psychological anomalies" is the phrase.  Coined by Cid Kramer and it shows.  For the uninitiated, it means, "They aren't crazy as long as they're useful.  Once they stop being useful, here's our justification for ditching them, along with a built in 'told-ya-so.'"  We don't actually _have _these anomalies, but we _might._  When it becomes _convenient._

They're just waiting to be used, the perfect excuse to have done with us.  "Retirement."  That's another Cid Kramer euphemism.  Only one SeeD draws a pension, but scores have "retired."  Connect the dots.

We all have them.  The little marks against us, written in green: red was too abrasive, and no one wants "black marks" on their file.  

Mine, among others, includes, "pathological fear of failure," "major depressive disorder," and, of course, "generalized anxiety disorder."  That one's pretty common when you spend your days dodging bullets and your nights blowing up bridges.

Selphie's penchant for surveillance nailed her with a "voyeuristic paraphilia" label.  Zell could have impulse-control disorders.  Squall's goes so far as to raise the possibility of autism.

The best one, though, is Fujin's.  Fujin's specialty is – like mine – psychological operations, but one of her secondary fields is linguistics.  She's head and shoulders above the rest of SeeD.  If there's the slightest regional dialect, she'll have picked it up in five minutes and you'd never know the difference.  Of course, her appearance isn't suited for undercover work, so she opted for a support role.

Xu, who also has an interest in linguistics, got into an argument with Fujin when we were about 13.  The details remain sketchy – Seifer and I have prodded both women and neither one will say what really happened.  The end result, though, is that Fujin – in order to prove a point to Xu – took a vow of... brevity.  I think they're keeping score or something, but I have no idea who's ahead.  The only sure thing is that they're both _very _stubborn, and I don't see it abating any time in the near future.

The result of this protracted high-level argument about language constructs?  Fujin got nailed with a host of developmental disorders and late-onset failures of language.

The actual pause in Tia's speech lasts for only a second.  I marvel at my capacity for nonlinear thought.

"The Galbadian rich," she continues, "instituted a protracted campaign of starvation, and now they'd presented me with the _perfect _avenue to repay them.  A warm place to spend the evening.  Better food than I could imagine.  And best of all, I'd be stealing it right out of Vinzer Deling's mouth."

I am truly impressed.  We've all fought our own personal battles for revenge, but this is... breathtaking.  Tia didn't grow up at our orphanage.  She's too young to be part of our "gang."  But I'm considering nominating her for an honorary membership.  She smiles.

"Are you familiar with Security's intradepartmental disciplinary policy?"

I smile back.  "I was there when Seifer coined the phrase."  I don't add the second part, that for years before he coined the phrase, I watched him practice it on a daily basis.

She looks skyward and spreads her hands, quoting.  "'Insubordination is inevitable when the punishment is acceptable.'

"It has a certain eloquence," she rhapsodizes.  "And it was certainly true in my case.  Nothing the Delings could do would be any worse than my day-to-day life.  So this was just something I had to do.

"The beauty of the Great Library is that is housed _everything._  If you knew what you were looking for, and were willing to spend days tracking it down, you could find it.

"From the article, I learned where the reception would be held.  I had plenty of time to plan.  I pulled the building blueprints and studied those.  I got the security plans and taught myself how to pick the locks I'd need to pick..."

As she details her plan, I feel my jaw start to drop.  Most of my experience comes from hours of long study.  I have plenty of field experience, but she taught herself this stuff on the fly.  An improvised infiltration into a Galbadian state dinner.

"And then the night came.  It was so easy.  The third rule of the street in Deling City was 'don't get caught.'  And I didn't.  I moved through the dining hall like I owned it.  And I stopped right underneath one of the tables.  My first instinct was to grab food and eat until I couldn't eat any more.  But then...  My hunger for food faded.  And was replaced with something... else."

"I reached up onto the table, and instead of grabbing at the beef there, I grabbed the carving knife.  I crouched there, under the table, watching.  Waiting.  They passed so close to me, I could have reached out and touched them.  I saw their faces, connected them to names.  All the bigwigs of Galbadia were there.  Generals.  Politicians.  Bankers.  Growing up like... I did, I learned to handle myself.  I held that knife, and charted a course across the room.  I plotted my path.  One body, two bodies, three bodies.  I could almost hear them hit the floor.  I could taste the blood.  I held that knife and I knew I could bring down the whole damn system."

"And?"  The word flies out of me, unbidden.  She doesn't need my prompting to talk.  But I find myself enthralled with her story.

"And I put the knife back.  I grabbed a few items of food and I walked away.

"When I got outside, I took the biggest risk yet.  I went back.  I went to the window, right next to the glass.  I leaned in so close my breath condensed.  Anyone looking outside could have seen me."

She closes her eyes and I go with her.  I can so picture it, because it's a battle almost every one of us has fought in our own way.

"I leaned into the glass, and I talked to them.  I said, "Listen.  Listen to me, pigs.  Until now, I have been worthless to you.  Right now, in this moment, I am the only thing keeping you alive.  You owe me your lives, you stupid bastards.

"And then I walked away."

We open our eyes together.  I feel a little drunk on her triumph.  I wish I could make her a SeeD right now and bring her along tonight.  Having one more person this... ferocious could only do us good.  I hope no one of the First Team expects me to call them my "star pupil."  Tia is my legacy.  She's what I want to pass on to the next generation.  Strength.  Intelligence.  Commitment.  Perseverance.  Restraint.

If I'd had the courage to do this at her age.  Well... I'd probably have a little more Scarlet in me than I care to think about.

"The parade was shortly after that, and Commander Leonhart seemed to sum up everything that happened the night of the dinner.  And I knew, if I were in Intelligence, the rest of my life would be like that night.  I would move between people.  They wouldn't even know I was there.  I could watch them through the window, take what I wanted from them, and then, just walk away."

I don't like telling people about the orphanage.  It's not so much the fact that Cid had his hooks in us from day one.  It's more that... those days are sacred to me.  It's a special time that I shared with my friends.  We've talked about it together, to patch in our memories, but... I rarely discuss it with outsiders.

Once again, I'm about to break my own rule.  Seifer would be so proud.

"You remind me of someone," I say.  "A young girl I knew once."

"Really?" she says.

"Selphie," I say.  She looks startled.  "We grew up together.  Almost all of the First Team.  At the same orphanage.  I don't know if you know that or not."

"There's a rumor," she replies.

"It's true.  We all grew up together.  I don't expect you'll go spreading this around.  This is just... two friends talking."

I lean my head back.  I can smell the salt air.  Waves lapping on the sand.  I have an excellent memory, but the orphanage is more clear to me than anything else.  Since we shook off Cid's tampering, I can go back there whenever I want.

"Once upon a time," I start, "there was an orphanage by the sea.  Many children came and went, but there was a special group of them that always stuck together."

I'm not telling my story anymore.  I so rarely see it from my own eyes.  I see a composite view, narrated by all my friends.  I've pieced all our stories together, and I see it in a third-person view.

"There was a serious little boy, hopelessly devoted to his adoptive big sister.  He followed her everywhere, and it crushed him when she left.  Even before that happened, he was the still surface of the proverbial deep pond."

Squall standing in the rain, tears streaking down his face as he waited for someone who was never coming home.  When Matron dragged him in, he was running a high fever and I wound up taking care of him.  That might have been the start.

"There was another little boy who loved cowboy movies.  He practiced twirling his cap guns every day, all day, for weeks.  By the time he was finished, he'd done things no movie star could dream of.  He had a special understanding of the world.  It was physics, but we didn't know that then.  He could flip a coin so it landed on its edge or throw a card with such force it would embed itself into a watermelon from ten paces."

Irvine, showing us his "trick shots."  Bouncing a coin off the wall so it landed in his pocket.  Tossing a full deck of cards into a hat in under a minute.  And that damn boomerang.  Every time I threw it, it just flopped.  He was so good with it, he used to promise to give us "haircuts."

"Two children with blond hair, a boy and a girl.  Since they had no other family, they assumed they were siblings.  They were absolutely inseparable, and had the sort of almost-telepathy you usually see in twins.  They rarely needed to talk.  If one stood up, the other rose, too, and started running, because, together, they always knew where to go next."

He ran so fast.  So much faster than I did.  But he always waited for me to catch up to him.  We ran everywhere, no matter how short the distance.

"Another boy.  He bonded closest with their surrogate mother.  He could sense her moods better than anyone.  If she was angry, he could calm her down; if she was sad, he could cheer her up with nothing more than a smile."

Burying Zell in the sand.  Seifer and I running to the lighthouse and leaving him behind.  And one of the hardest moments: Zell's adoption.  We all felt it – our family dissolving.  Ellone had already gone, but Zell was the first of _us _to leave.  All I could do was stare at Squall.  I never noticed how much Seifer was hurting.

"And... a brunette, who was always something of a paradox.  On the one hand, she was almost relentlessly cheery.  But she was... strange."

"Strange?"  Tia asks.  "Strange how?"

"Sometimes, the good cheer was just an act, you'd see a look in her eyes like she knew much more than she was letting on.  She always carried around paper in her pockets.  And a pen behind her ear.  If you looked at it, the paper was always blank.  If you asked her what the paper was for, she'd say, 'taking notes.'  'Notes about what?'  'Just notes.'"

"What were the notes?" Tia presses.

"We never found them.  Not until the Year of the Camera."

"Year of the Camera?"

"The year she got a camera for her birthday.  As she unwrapped it, her eyes got really big and she went all quiet.  She held it for a second and then ran away.  When she came back, she didn't have the camera with her.  We asked her where it was, but all she would tell us was that it was 'somewhere safe.'

"We didn't see that camera for an entire year.  But we knew it was still out there.  She'd be outside, playing with us or whatever, and then she'd say she was going inside.  And that would be it.  But when things got really quiet and you stopped paying attention, sometimes, you'd hear a little 'click.'  If you turned fast enough, you could see a little flash of yellow out of the corner of your eye.  Hence, the Year of the Camera."

"So when did you find the notes?"

"Zell woke up in the middle of the night to get a sandwich.  On his way back from the kitchen, he stubbed his toe.  And he started howling like the world was coming to an end.  Seifer has always been a light sleeper... to put it mildly."

How to convey this particular quirk of his?

"You know how a cat can be curled up sleeping, and then it hears a noise and wakes up and runs across the room like it wasn't asleep at all?"

She nods.

"That's Seifer.  So, when Zell started screaming, Seifer was up in a flash.  I believe his stated purpose was, quote 'to pound the baby back to sleep.'  Zell had indeed stubbed his toe, and they found out why.  One of the stones in the main hallway was loose.  Sticking up a little.  We crossed that thing a million times a day, but all of a sudden, it was loose.

"So they pried it up.  Underneath the stone was a little... cubby-hole.  Inside, we found Selphie's camera and more pictures than we could count.  There was also a notebook where she'd pasted all her notes.  Little things like, 'Quistis is too bossy,' or 'Zell ate so much ice cream he puked.'  Observations.  Who said what to whom.  Everything we'd said or done, stored there since well before she got the camera.  Hidden right under our feet.

"We never would have found it, but for Zell's growling stomach.  She was 'visiting' her treasure and he surprised her.  She didn't have time to put it back in place properly, so the corner was elevated slightly more than it should have been."

"What did you all of you do?" Tia asks.  I have to cock my head at this.

"Do?  Nothing."  The idea of doing something about it never entered our minds.  "We were all looking at the notebook and she came out of the bedroom.  She looked at us and we looked at her.  Then, we just put it back and went back to bed.

"We never mentioned it and neither did she.  The album and the photos were gone the next time anyone thought to look.  I think she learned a lesson that day, but I don't think it stopped her."

"Why do you think that?"

"Every once in a while, you still see that look in her eyes.  And, come to think of it: when was the last time you saw her write something down?"

"What's the connection to me?" she smiles.  She knows.  She just wants to hear me say it.  I'll indulge her, and then I'll walk out that door and try not to get myself killed.  

"You carry the lesson of that night with you.  It motivates you.  It's what drives you.  You like the watching and knowing.  You learn someone's secrets and that's what gives you power over them.  And, like Selphie, while your childhood shaped you and influenced your path, it did not determine who you have become."

I stand at this.  For once, I can think of nothing more to teach her.  I could throw a mountain of facts at her, sure.  But there aren't any more lessons I can give her.

Well, maybe one.

"I'm going now," I say.  "Xu's got a briefing waiting for us.  We're going to take back Garden or die trying."


	28. Sturm und Drang

Every mission loadout is unique.  There's a rhythm that goes with them, a temp where you prepare your gear and bond with your teammates.  If all goes according to plan and you have a good loadout, you'll barely need to talk to your squad onsite.

Most of the time, we're silly.  You could see it as a defense mechanism, trying to avoid the nature of the work we do, but in truth it's just a group of people who enjoy each other's company.  Seifer and I trade puns, each vying for the biggest groan from the assembled crew.  Selphie sings songs, overblown ballads detailing our glorious victories over the pasta monsters from planet Linguini-4.  Zell constructs elaborate fictions, starting with a few simple bits of trivia about our destination and adding layers of untruth with such subtlety that he almost talked the lot of us into believing that the town of Balamb once elected a mackerel as its mayor.  And when the laughter starts to subside, Squall will chime in, delivering a punchline that's never more than five words in length, talking so softly we have to strain to hear him, but which leaves us holding our sides with the hilarity of it all.

This is different, though.  It barely seems like we're a team at this point.  We're just a group of people going to our jobs, sharing a flight.  And at the same time, we're acutely aware that it could be the last time we're ever together again.

As we sit onboard the _Ragnarok_, I find myself taking stock of these people, my family.  I realize that my life is genuinely up for grabs this evening. It rests in the hands of the people around me.  That fact should terrify me, but it doesn't.  If my friends can't keep me alive, if they can't win this battle, no one can.

 The plan is a good one.  Bold, of course, but it's Xu's, so that's to be expected.  Knowing that she believes in it is enough for me.  She wouldn't present us with any solution unless she was convinced it would work.

We listen as she sets out the details.  We take our assignments.  And then, we just sort of... sit there.  Waiting.  We don't talk, we don't ask questions.  We just wait for arrival.  The only change in the routine is when the ship heads into a storm.  It too, is traveling to Balamb Garden.  The lightning flashes right outside the window, rain pelting against the hull in anger.  The first crash of thunder comes from my right, and it's loud enough that most of us jump reflexively. 

When the storm shows no signs of letting up, Nida rises to his feet.  The ship is pitching pretty violently, but you'd think he was on solid ground.  He makes his way forward, and disappears into the cabin.  I fasten my safety harness, knowing he might opt for some creative flying.

Other than that, I close my eyes and wait.  Nothing else happens until we reach the midpoint of our journey, the stage at which we part ways.  We're almost out of the storm for now, but we'll have to turn back into it when we head to Garden.  We lurch to our feet with varying degrees of dexterity and stagger to the hangar, where the _Discovery _is waiting, gleaming and silver.

We have now reached a point of true awkwardness.  Saying goodbye when it could mean "goodbye forever."  None of us have prepared for this moment.  All the training in the world can't ready you for it, and we just stare at each other, dumbfounded.  Irvine makes the first move, smoothing the way for us all.

He steps aside from the pack and walks over to the _Discovery, _running an appreciative hand over her hull.

"So," he says, turning to the rest of us.  He's got the barest hint of a smile on his lips, but his eyes undercut it.  There's a little fear behind the bravado, and that sums it up nicely.

Xu moves next, her hands clasped in front of her and not a trace of emotion on her face.  The only thing that gives away her concern is the fact that her right thumb is tapping out a small rhythm on her left.  It's the only flaw I've ever seen in her poker face, and I've been relying on it for years.  If she knew it was there, I honestly believe she'd cut her thumb off.

We don't hug or wish each other luck, though.  We don't need to.  Somehow, Xu and I have moved beyond that stage in our friendship.  I catch her eye and we nod at each other, and that's it.  We've said what we need to say.

Selphie goes last, and she _does _hug, squeezing each of us in turn.  She stops at Squall, and when she wraps her arms around him, she murmurs, "Make him pay."  He places a hand on the back of her head and nods.

"I will," he whispers back.

And then she, too, joins her team.  They climb into the ship, and we take a step back as the hangar door opens.  The _Discovery _pitches into space, powerless for a moment, before Selphie engages the engine.  The ship vanishes within moments, a shimmering dot on the horizon.  As the hangar door closes, we start to move again, turning around and heading back into the storm, heading home.

The rest of us grab the remainder of our gear – parachutes and oxygen masks – and start to suit up.  We'll be doing a HALO Jump directly into the Quad.  Hard jump, abysmal weather, small landing area.  I seriously consider – not for the first time – smacking Seifer upside the head for ruining the route in through the Training Center.

We're climbing, the ship ascending through the clouds as Nida takes us above the threat envelope.  We're not exactly sure if Mallis has set up any kind of anti-air emplacements, but none of us want to find out the hard way.

The gangplank lowers again as the ship starts to hover, and we all start putting on our masks.

"Wait," Squall says, lowering the mask from his face.  The ship banks and Squall sways a little more than the rest of us.  I confess I'm a little concerned about him.  He's been out of action for too long, he's weaker than he should be.  I want to tell him not to go, I want to go with him, I want to keep him safe, but I know I can't do that any more.  My job is not protecting Squall – if it ever was.  It's supporting him.  He'll go no matter what anyone says, so I'll just do my part to keep him alive.

"There's something...  I should say something..." he says.  "We're going in there to fight him, to take back what we lost.  And..." Squall shakes his head, lost for words.

"If I may," I supply.  "I'm reminded of something a great leader once said.  It's as appropriate now as then.  He said, 'This battle is Garden's destiny, and our destiny ... I don't want to have any regrets.  I don't want anyone to look back and regret this day.'"

He smiles a little, at once relieved I spoke for him and embarrassed at the compliment.

"That does it for me!" Zell quips, slamming a fist into his other hand.

Seifer shrugs.  "You heard Selphie.  Let's make 'em pay."

As simple as that.  We fit on our facemasks and line up for the jump, plummeting thousands of feet through pelting rain, aiming for an almost impossibly small target.  The storm rages around us, and we have once again come home.

AN:

Tremendously sorry about the delay.  I think I've alluded to my computer troubles in the past, but this time, my computer flat-out died.  Wouldn't boot up for anything.  All my QoH stuff is trapped on it, and I shell out for a new computer.  We're not far from the end of the story, though, and you have my solemn promise that I won't abandon it.  I **will **finish this story, no matter how long the delay is.


	29. Defying Gravity

Kiros sat in the airship, listening to Laguna chatter -- a rambling story revolving around a horse and a frog trapped in a lifeboat. Laguna had also found a substantial length of string in his pockets and set about making a cat's cradle and, in doing so, had inextricably bound his hands together.

"So then the bartender says--" Laguna mumbled, his mouth full of string as he tried to chew through a particularly stubborn knot.

"They're in a lifeboat," Kiros snapped.

"Hrm?"

"Your story takes place in a lifeboat. You don't _have _a bartender. You have a horse and a frog. You can't just have a bartender show up and start talking."

Laguna frowned. He attempted to make a rude gesture in Kiros's direction, but this extra motion pulled the reluctant string even tighter, cutting off circulation to the offending digit.

"Well, if you know the story so well, _you _tell it."

Kiros sighed. "Laguna, aren't you worried at all?"

The President gestured with his bound hands. "Oh, I always manage to get untangled."

"No. I'm not talking about the string. I'm talking about one of our top Ambassadors turning coat and kidnapping the daughter of the Galbadian Republic's most powerful general. And she, by the way, was placed in our care by your son in an effort to keep her away from Justinian Varrant – to whom she has now been delivered. Does this bother you in the slightest?"

Laguna shrugged. "Of course it bothers me. That's why I wanted to go see Caraway. I just don't see any point in getting worked up over it. Why not relax and enjoy the flight?"

"I can't relax. This could undo everything we've worked for over the last few decades. This could destroy us."

Laguna smiled, his face serene. "You see, Kiros," he said. His hands worked an intricate dance and the coils of string fell off his fingers, dropping into a neat pile on the floor. "These things have a way of working themselves out."

* * *

Laguna wandered through the corridors of the hotel, listless. The Republic Hotel – formerly the Deling City Hotel – had changed drastically in the intervening years. The once-ornate furnishings had given way to sleek, modern lines. Gold and silver had yielded to black lacquer and chrome. It could still boast the nicest rooms in the city, but its fawning treatment of the rich and famous had died with the Deling regime.

Laguna's entourage occupied an entire floor of the hotel. Since Varrant-now-Mallis resurfaced, Kiros insisted Laguna bring a massive security detail whenever and wherever he traveled. Guards dotted the hallways, aides whispered in hushed tones, and Laguna smiled at them all as he passed. No one stopped to question the briefcase in his hand but he saw several curious looks.

He paused outside one room, and his hand closed on the door handle. He took a deep breath and, then, losing his nerve, walked away.

He resumed his walk, turning the corner and coming across the bank of elevators. One of his guards stood there, a red-haired woman named Elena kept watch with a calm detachment.

"Hi, Elena," Laguna smiled, "I hear there's good news."

She smiled back, her face lighting up as she pressed a hand to her stomach. "Yeah, I just found out a couple days ago."

"Have you started thinking of names yet?" he asked.

Her grin widened. "I was thinking Laguna if it's a boy and Laguna-ette if it's a girl," she winked.

"Hey, I like those odds!" he exclaimed.

"You know, sir," she said, "this is my last assignment and all and I just wanted to let you know it's been a real honor serving you."

"Oh, it was my pleasure," he replied. "Having nice people surrounding me makes this job bearable."

"So, I guess you'll be wanting to go downstairs?" she asked, gesturing with her head to the elevator. "Should I call for a team to escort you?"

"No, don't bother," he said. "I just wanted to return your briefcase," he said, handing it off to her.

She looked puzzled and tried to hand it back. "This isn't mine, sir."

"Sure it is," he insisted. "Has your initials on it." His eyes sparkled as he pushed it at her again. "Maybe you should open it, see if there's anything inside that belongs to you."

She set the briefcase on the table between the elevators and popped it open. Her eyes widened in shock as she tried to comprehend the hefty pile of cash inside. She looked up just in time to see the elevator doors closing in front of Laguna.

"Happy retirement," he called out, grinning as the elevator started to descend.

Elena reached for her phone and started dialing Kiros's number.

* * *

_Please excuse our dust while we renovate._

The renovations had not yet reached the bar of the hotel. More than any other part of the hotel, Laguna could see the past. It lurked in the furniture, concealed under white cloth and in the sound of a piano that haunted Laguna's memory.

"I'm sorry," he murmured to the air, sliding into the seat he'd last occupied so many years ago. "I should have known. We'll get her back. I promise."

"What are you doing, Laguna?" came Kiros's voice as he walked down the stairs.

"Kiros!" Laguna exclaimed, brightening. "I wanted to get a drink, but the service here is _terrible._ I can see why this place is empty."

Kiros stopped in front of the table, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

"Cut the act," he snapped.

"Wha-?"

"We both know what you're doing here. This isn't about Caraway at all, is it?"

"I don't—"

Kiros clasped his hands behind his back and started pacing like a caged animal.

"I was a little baffled at first. _You_ suggested the meeting with Caraway. When have _you _ever taken the initiative on affairs of state?"

Kiros whirled, facing Laguna.

"Then I started reading the latest reports from Garden. The same reports that get delivered to you, and that you so-carefully pretend you don't read. SeeD is going to take back Balamb Garden tonight. No doubt you'd love to be there. On the front lines. Side by side with your kid, fighting the good fight. But how would you get there?" 

"I—"

"It just so happens, however, that SeeD is launching a two-pronged attack. The first prong to take on Varrant. Recover Garden and rescue Rinoa. The second prong will attack The Storm. Which is currently housed... well, right here in ol' Galbadia. Is that the plan, Laguna? Slip the leash, slide over to the Missile Base, and pick up where you left off twenty years ago?"

Laguna stared at Kiros, mouth agape. "I just wanted something to—"

"Give me some credit, Laguna. You smile that idiot grin of yours, but I see it in your eyes: you're on a crusade. You're out to save the world again."

"And what's so bad about that?" Laguna shot back. "We dropped the ball on this one. What's wrong with trying to make it right?"

"Because there's more at stake here than you realize. _Everything _is at stake here. Everything we've worked for. Everything we've built. It's not just your life you'll be risking. It's... the entire country."

Kiros paused, waiting for Laguna to respond. When he did not, Kiros continued.

"Think about it. You – the President – want to join in a mercenary action on Galbadian soil. That's tantamount to an act of war."

Laguna spread his hands. "What do you want me to do?"

"Walk away," Kiros pressed. "Just... walk away from this one. Meet with Caraway. Tell him SeeD is on the job. Then we just go home. We raise the Curtain again. Police the borders until Varrant tries to make a move, and that's when we get him."

Laguna shook his head. "That's the problem. We should never have installed that damn Curtain in the first place. That's what got us to this point. We let Varrant roam free for twenty years. We assumed he was someone else's problem. Now he's got all the allies and resources he needs."

"We _won, _Laguna. We won the war. We aren't the revolution any more. _We're_ the status quo. He has to overthrow _us._"

"He already conquered the country once. He's the one who installed Adel on the throne in the first place."

"He had Adel, though. She's dead and buried. He's weak and desperate."

Laguna laughed in disbelief. "Do you remember who we're talking about? Even 'weak' he's still more powerful than most Sorceresses. He's also patient and brilliant. He won't attack us until he's good and ready. If we wait, we'll be fighting on his terms, when his chance of success is highest. We have to take the fight to his door."

"Damn it, Laguna," Kiros growled. "This is not squashing bugs in some stupid backwoods town. You're the President. Start acting like it. Take some responsibility."

"Responsibility? You're the one who thinks we should stick our heads in the sand and hope he'll go away."

"I'm not saying we should do nothing. I'm saying we dig deep. Fortify our defenses, so that when he comes for us, and he will—"

"When?" Laguna nearly leapt to his feet, almost overturning the table in the process. "When?"

Kiros looked down at the floor, unwilling to finish his statement.

"You don't think they can do it," Laguna pushed. "You think he's going to kill Squall."

"I think," Kiros said, speaking slowly, "that they have very little idea who they're dealing with. You and I, we know what he's capable of. We saw it firsthand. To Squall... he's a history lesson."

"You think he's going to kill Squall."

Kiros slumped. "I do. I think he's going to kill every one of them. I think he's going to kill Squall and turn his singular talent for... persuasion to Rinoa. And then – if he hasn't already – he's going to force Adel's power out of the girl and into anyone who's available, including himself if need be. And once he's done that..."

Kiros spread his hands in an unmistakable gesture of defeat.

"That's why we have to fight him, Kiros," Laguna said, closing with his friend. "We can't just hope for the best this time. We're not going to be safe until he's dead."

"So... that's it. You're just going to pack up and go?"

Laguna shook his head. "It doesn't have to be that way." He paused for a long moment. "Come with me, Kiros. Come fight with me. Ward has the reins back at home. We slip out tonight, meet up with SeeD, and we're back at the hotel by morning. Like old times."

Kiros smiled a little. "Like old times, huh?"

"Exactly! You and I, side by side," he said, and Kiros's grin widened. "Doing good deeds, fighting for a cause."

Kiros's smile dropped. "That was never my dream. It was yours."

"You're not coming," Laguna said. A statement and not a question.

"You're going," Kiros replied.

"Good luck, then." Laguna reached into the pocket of his jacket and produced a sealed envelope. He set it on the table. Kiros made no move to retrieve it.

"What is that?"

"That is a letter expressing my desire to resign from the presidency. It also endorses you as my successor. What you do with it is up to you."

"If this is some kind of ultimatum—"

"It isn't," Laguna replied. "It's up to you if you want to use it. If I don't come back, it won't matter. If I do, the decision is yours. I know you'll do what you feel is best."

Kiros nodded and Laguna started for the stairs. Halfway up, he turned and looked at his old friend.

"I just wish you could see that I'm doing the same thing."

* * *

Laguna walked through the streets of Galbadia City. The air smelled sweet and clean, washed by a storm that had blown out to sea, heading for Balamb. Laguna felt twenty years younger. Free. Unburdened by the cares of the presidency for the first time in decades.

Words rang in Laguna's ears: "What more could anyone want?" The voice didn't belong to Kiros, though. It belonged to Laguna, and he had spoken those words before ever coming to Esthar.

* * *

"A lovely wife, a home in a great town, little Elle. What more could anyone want? It's like a dream come true, do you think?" he asked, turning to look at the beautiful woman across from him, radiant in her wedding dress.

She didn't reply, not out loud at least. Instead, she smiled that strange, sad smile that made Laguna ache with longing.

"Hey, what's wrong?" he asked, rushing to her side. Putting his arm around her.

"Nothing," she murmured. "Just... remembering something I once heard someone say in the bar. I don't even know who it was, but it always stuck with me."

"What did they say?" he cocked his head.

"They said, 'when dreams come true, they don't come free.'"

"What a strange thing to think about on your wedding day," he said, caressing her face with one hand. She kissed his hand gently and fell back on the bed, pulling him with her.

* * *

It had taken years before Laguna finally understood what Raine meant. His dreams had come true – he'd rescued Ellone. He'd liberated Esthar from Adel. But at what price? Missing the death of his wife and his son's entire childhood. He'd burnt bridges without even knowing he'd crossed them.

This time, at least, he saw the bridge in advance. He might have just thrown away his political career, to say nothing of his friendship with Kiros.

He looked up to the sky, searching the stars. "Tell me I'm doing the right thing, Raine," he whispered. The wind picked up, blowing against him, gliding past his face and mussing his hair. When he opened his eyes, he saw the sign he needed: a perfect white feather, as from a swan, sitting on the ground, untouched by wind or the departed storm.

He smiled and knelt down, picking up the feather and placing it in his jacket pocket, in the spot once occupied by his letter of resignation.

"Good enough for me."

* * *

The _Discovery _hurtled through the sky, propelled, it seemed, as much by the force of Selphie's rage as by its own engines.

"There you are," she hissed as the wreckage of the Missile Base rose on the horizon. She turned the controls, banking the ship to one side as she set it down in the spot Xu had picked for landing.

The group gathered their gear and prepared to disembark. As the gangplank lowered, Selphie gasped in surprise, startled to see someone waiting for them outside the ship.

"Sir Laguna?" Selphie shrieked, voice climbing to a near-inaudible pitch.

"Hi," he grinned, machine gun resting over one shoulder. "You guys feel like blowing up some ships?"


	30. Vignette

"What are you doing here?" Selphie exclaimed, still stunned.

"Should be kind of obvious, shouldn't it?" Laguna shot back. "I'm here for the same reason you are."

"Buh?"

Laguna hazarded a glance at his watch. "You're running a little late, gang. Better get out of the ship and hunker down."

They filed dutifully out of the ship and crouched near some shrubbery, far enough away to observe the base without being seen in return.

"President Loire," Xu hissed, "Do you really think you should be here? With us?"

"I'm well aware of the political implications," he whispered, in a tone that indicated he would brook no further protest.

"What are we waiting for?" Selphie asked, after a minute or two had passed.

Laguna waved his hand in an unmistakable gesture calling for quiet.

Another few minutes passed in silence. Just as the patience of the SeeDs started to wane, the air started to ring with a sound they found all too familiar. Bit by bit, the wreckage of the Missile Base winked out of existence. A dome constructed of the same panels that made up Esthar's defensive Curtain had projected the image of the ruined base. As the panels turned clear, they revealed an empty expanse of desert. Nothing more.

Laguna rose to his feet, scratching his head idly.

"Huh," he said. "Wasn't expecting that." He glanced down at Xu. "You sure the base is here?"

She scowled, still looking at the dome.

"Positive."

They waited another ten seconds before the ground started to rumble. With a deafening roar, the earth beneath the dome gave way, clouds of dust obscuring lines of sight in all direction. When the dust settled, the desert had undergone a startling transformation.

The dome enclosed control towers, aircraft runways, barracks, and, especially, row upon row of troop ships. The barren patch of desert served as just another layer of camouflage. Mallis had constructed the facility housing The Storm underground, buried beneath massive doors and several inches of obscuring sand.

"We're too late," Xu said, straining to make her voice heard over the roar of the engines as The Storm took to the skies.

"Right on time, I'd say," Laguna replied.

"What are you talking about?" Irvine asked as the ships receded onto the horizon.

Laguna reached into the pocket of his jacket and produced his phone. His eyes wandered from the base to the vanishing ships, and he threw the phone to Xu without looking at her.

"Answer that," he said.

She looked at the decidedly non-ringing phone.

"Uh..."

The phone rang. Xu jumped as if it had transformed into a poisonous snake in her hand. Regaining her composure, she pressed the button and raised it to her ear.

"Yes?" she asked.

"Who am I speaking to?" came a strong voice on the other end.

"Xu Xiucai, SeeD's executive officer. And this is?"

"I'm showing that The Storm has left the base," came the voice, avoiding her question. "Can you confirm this?"

"All the ships are away," she replied. "Who—"

The phone went dead. Xu reached out to hand it back to Laguna, who had started studying the skies with a small set of binoculars.

"Who was that?" Xu asked again.

"Sir Laguna," Selphie said, no longer able to restrain her insatiable curiosity, "what's going on? Who was on the phone? What are we waiting for? What are you looking for?"

"Patience, my dear. Patience."

He did one more scan of the horizon and smiled. "There he is."

"What?" Selphie asked, "Who?"

Laguna handed the binoculars to Selphie. He pointed to a tiny speck on the horizon, and Selphie raised the field glasses to her eyes.

"The cavalry," he answered.

The speck hurtled toward them, increasing in size until they could all recognize it as a small, one-man airship. It landed near the _Discovery_, and its pilot, a tall, lean man with his face obscured by a flight helmet, jumped out and walked toward the group.

"Laguna," he said, his voice deep and clear. He extended a hand towards Laguna like an old friend.

"Hey, chief," Laguna replied, walking towards the man and taking the offered hand. "Get a load of this place."

"Varrant never was one to skimp on expenses," the man replied, one gloved hand reaching up to unfasten his helmet. "How long until The Storm hits Garden?"

"Well, that's why we're here, isn't it?"

"True enough," he agreed, "true enough." He pulled the helmet off and tossed it over to his ship. "Let's level this place and get our kids back home safe, hmm?"

Xu cradled her head in her hands. "This is a political nightmare."

General Caraway turned to look at her. "The political situation in Galbadia is under control."

"Director Llyriance would love to have an excuse to declare war on us again. Especially after what we did to him."

"Director Llyriance is no more," Caraway said. "In the wake of his interrogation by mercenary enemies of the state, he has been denounced as a traitor to the Galbadian Republic. He has been placed under arrest by joint order of the other members of the Committee of National Defense."

"What's going to happen to him?" Irvine asked.

"He's scheduled for execution in the morning. However, his guards are only human. If they accidentally happen to leave a loaded pistol under his pillow, and if he happens to find it in the night, there's nothing any of us can do about that."

"And the war on Garden?" Xu pressed.

"Llyriance's... removal leaves an empty seat on the Committee. The other eight members smell the blood in the water. They'll be too busy fighting each other to pay to anything else."

"Which is when you establish control," Selphie finished.

"They claim to have the support of the military," Caraway nodded. "But while the Republic has been scrambling to raise cash, I've been the one guaranteeing my troops have food to eat. They're loyal to me, not the Committee. There will be no more public executions. No more denunciations. No more war on Garden."

Caraway hazarded a glance at the base through his own set of binoculars.

"I realize that the Delings weren't ideal leaders. They were vicious dictators. But the Republic is little better than an angry mob given power. With time, and effort, I'll make Galbadia safe again."

He lowered the field glasses.

"Last time I got a shot at Varrant, I was a much younger man. The Delings gave me command of our side of the Sorceress War because they hoped to see me fail. I accepted because I wanted to make Galbadia a safe place is raise a family. Like Laguna, I'm here to finish what we started twenty years ago."

Xu's mouth pulled tight. "The mission profile is out the window. We were supposed to get in there before the ships launched. This was a three-man mission, and now we have five. You don't even have a real weapon," she said, furrowing her brow, "just a flare gun."

"If you went in before, they would have caught you, and you would have had to fight off the entirety of The Storm. You SeeDs are very good, but you're still human. And as for being armed..."

Caraway reached down to his belt and drew his flare pistol. He held it up to the sky and fired, the flare illuminating the night.

A heartbeat passed where nothing happened. Out of nowhere, though, a small squadron of airships filled the sky. They surrounded the SeeDs on all sides, hatches flying open, and disgorging scores of troops who dropped to the ground by fast-rope descent.

"You brought the _army_?" Xu gaped.

"Not quite," Caraway replied. "Troops!" he called, "Masks!"

As one, the troops reached up and removed the masks obscuring their faces. The SeeDs stared for a long moment before comprehending what Caraway wanted them to see: They knew these troops. Every one of them.

"Haynes... Wilkinson... Poole..." Xu recited, running across the faces.

"And Hewitt and Walsh and Stevenson," Selphie continued. "You all went to Garden," she said. "Why are you working for the Galbadian army?"

"They all went to Garden," Irvine murmured. "And they all failed the SeeD exam."

"You trained them," Caraway explained. "I recruited them. Garden was their home, too. They want to do their part to help retaking it."

Xu nodded. "So we charge in and level the place?"

Laguna smiled his lopsided grin. "That's the best kind of plan."

One of the troops ran up to Caraway and handed him a gun case. Caraway set it on the ground and sprung it open, revealing a glistening silver rifle. He hefted it over his shoulder as Irvine's jaw dropped.

"Is that—" he whispered, reverence deep in his voice. "I never thought I'd see..."

"It is," Caraway replied. "The Exeter Zero-One."

Irvine licked his lips. "It's the prototype for the Exeter model," he explained. "They only made fourteen of them, and that was the first one off the line."

Caraway shrugged and glanced at his troops. "We ready to do this?"

Selphie smiled.

"Make them bleed."

* * *

Quistis plummeted through the air at over a hundred miles an hour, battered on all sides by wind and rain, driving the already subzero temperatures even lower. At this altitude, she ran the fatal risk of passing out from a lack of oxygen, which would mean death from "sudden deceleration trauma" – dying on impact. This, alone, did not provide the sole danger of a HALO drop. Goggles had shattered; eyeballs had frozen. Quistis couldn't say she found either option very attractive.

She had long since reached terminal velocity – the speed at which she could fall no faster. After falling more than six miles through the atmosphere, at a height of 2500 feet above the ground, she pulled her ripcords, dramatically slowing her descent.

Much of the jump's difficulty lay behind the SeeDs, but an equal amount lay before them. They still had to hit their target – the Quad. A miniscule postage stamp of a landing zone, each SeeD would have to hit the ground with almost pinpoint accuracy, avoiding the trees, the overhanging roof of the second story, the SeeDs who'd already landed, and, of course, whatever guards Mallis had waiting for them.

The parachute-aided fall made for a welcome change of pace, and Quistis found her mind running over the thousands of concerns that lurked in the back of her mind.

First and greatest of these, she found herself worrying about Squall, floating in controlled motions below her. She felt consumed not with an older sister's worry, or a lover's concern, but the acute sense that her commanding officer, her comrade-in-arms, and yes, her friend, could die. He'd spent so much time in the infirmary, resting up from the last battle with Mallis, that – under normal circumstances – none of SeeD's medical officers would have cleared him for the jump.

Not that he would have listened.

Wherever Mallis had Rinoa, Squall would have to make his way there, potentially fighting through hordes of guards. Seifer had destroyed the elevator, the most direct means of access of the other floors. The remaining options involved a labyrinth of stairs and ladders, guaranteed to exhaust the already-weak Squall. To say nothing of the fight waiting for him when he arrived.

Squall seemed to have other plans, though. Quistis saw his body convulse, and he broke away from their carefully structured pack. She twisted to follow his motion as he moved, trying to find whatever had caused him to deviate from their plan.

As she dropped to Squall's position before he broke away, she saw it – or, more precisely, _them_: Mallis and Rinoa atop the Garden's central spire. Quistis found her worry replaced with unmitigated horror. Squall had exchanged a merely lethal landing zone for a purely suicidal one. Now he'd have to avoid the Garden's exterior ring and its protruding spokes to land on an almost impossibly small target. The momentum of landing alone virtually guaranteed to carry him over the edge of the spire, leading to a long and assuredly fatal fall.

As Squall struggled against the wind to control his drop, he left her sight, leaving her to focus on her own problems: her landing, her mission, and her half-sister.

* * *

Seifer and Zell slid into the security office, locking the door behind them. They'd sliced their way through the first floor of Garden, cutting through scores of Mallis's troops. They'd separated with Quistis at the emergency stairwell leading to the second floor. She'd gone to open up the weapons lockers on the third floor, and they'd come to Seifer's office to release the captured SeeDs, all trapped in the classrooms. The second floor seemed deserted, and they'd barricaded the stairwell as best as possible in the limited time available to them. It might not have bought much time, but at the very least, the soldiers would have to run to the other side of the Garden and use the stairwells there to attack them.

"Take a seat," Seifer ordered, pointing to the chair next to him. "We're going to have to unlock the doors one at a time, and I think they've changed the codes, so it'll take a little time."

Zell sat down as Seifer instructed and started following Seifer's complex instructions.

The door to the office slid open, revealing two armed officers of The Storm. Seifer and Zell jumped to their feet, readying their weapons. The four men looked at each other in a tense standoff for a moment, before one of the officers howled in rage.

"You!" he screamed, pointing at Seifer. "You."

Seifer blinked. "Huh?"

"I was an officer... in the Galbadian Army," the man hissed, panting with anger. "The day of our raid on Dollet... Wedge worked for me... I was supposed toget a promotion... you _ruined my life!_"

He charged at Seifer, firing his gun wildly. Seifer threw himself on the floor, aiming his gun, but Zell sprang into action first.

He dove at the charging officer, grabbing him by the wrist and pulling him forward and off-balance. He kicked the man's legs from behind, drove an elbow into his neck, and as the man fell, Zell spun him around so he landed on his back, knocking the wind out of him.

"I ruined a lot of lives that day," Seifer said, peering at the name printed on the man's dogtags. "I'm supposed to remember you... Biggs?"

The man howled again, this time from a mixture of fury and pain, when a single gunshot cut him short.

Seifer and Zell looked up at the other officer, standing there with an arm extended, smoke rising from the barrel of his gun.

"He's been holding me back for too long," the other officer said. "And now..."

He twirled his gun, once, so the barrel pointed back at him, and then tossed the gun casually to Zell who snatched it out of the air.

"Killed by invaders," the officer said, shrugging. "Good thing I was able to escape with my life."

He smiled a little, then vanished down the hallway with a jaunty wave.

"Be seeing you."

* * *

Selphie hit the door to the massive control room first, bursting through it with vengeance in her heart. She'd kept pushing the First Team forward, moving them ever closer to the heart of the base, leaving Caraway's troops to deal with the mainstay of the base's defenders. While she loved methodical, carefully planned missions of espionage, Selphie possessed no such desire on this particular evening. She wanted to crush, to destroy, to avenge. To invade the base and leave nothing in her wake.

Her speed had surprised the technicians in the control room. They'd scarcely had time to register news of the invasion, it seemed, when the intruders fell upon them.

Some of the technicians attempted to run. Others reached for weapons or froze in place, unsure of the wisest course of action. Their different choices reaped similar results.

"Fire!" ordered Selphie, unloading her weapon into the crowd. Filled with the righteousness of her goal, Selphie found herself only peripherally aware of the actions of her teammates. She could hear the report from Irvine's gun, firing with the same careful detachment he applied to target practice – one shot, one kill. She heard him release a clip, reloading his weapon, and she could picture the bemused grin he always wore in-between shots. She heard the steady, controlled bursts from Laguna's machine gun, three shots at a time. And she could hear the thunderous roar of Xu's enormous custom pistol, disgorging bullets with a sound like the crack of doom.

As the technicians died, the room fell silent. The vast majority of the equipment remained untouched, particularly the slave drive, which Selphie watched with anticipation. She approached it slowly, and heard Laguna at her side.

"There you go," he said. "Total control over every ship in The Storm."

She looked at it for a long minute, familiarizing herself with its controls. It had a dizzying array of dials and buttons, allowing an operator to act as pilot for any ship in the fleet. Although it did not take the form of a glowing red button, Selphie managed to find the self-destruct mechanism, a system requiring simultaneous turning of keys in the panel.

She extended a hand and Irvine slipped a key into it, taken from the corpse of one of the nearby technicians. He had a matching one and took up a place at the panel.

"Ready?" he asked.

Selphie pursed her lips. "Wait a minute," she said, pointing to the monitors showing the cockpits of individual ships. "What does that look like to you?" she asked.

"They're over the ocean," Irvine replied.

Selphie smiled. "That's what I thought."

Her hand lashed out and pressed a few buttons. Alarms lit up all over the slave drive as panicked reports came in from the pilots. She'd pressed the "release" button, responsible for launching the scores of troops contained in the ships. She'd launched their sealed canisters straight into the ocean.

Irvine whistled. "Wow. That's..."

Selphie closed her eyes, once again picturing the train car plummeting into the ocean.

"Fitting," she said.

--

AN: Apologies once more for continued delays. More of the same, I'm afraid, but long hours trapped in the airport makes for plenty of writing time – you may thank the good folks at Northwestern for the bulk of this chapter. Your continued patience is greatly appreciated – we have less than five chapters left, so stick with me.


	31. Soldier Through This

The weapons locker, predictably enough, is where Balamb Garden stores the majority of its weapons. Weapons belonging to individuals stay with the individuals, but weapons that are the property of the Garden remain in the locker. As you might expect of an organization of our wealth, we have enough guns to stage the overthrow of a small-to-middling-nation. And while our troops are trained in hand-to-hand combat, when they're half-starved and demoralized, as Mallis has been careful to keep them, they need weapons to give them the edge. Freeing them from their restraints will go a long way to restoring their moral, but to turn the tide against the occupying force, they'll need guns. Lots of guns.

It is to that end that I stand before the weapons locker, frantically rewiring the access panel, trying to coax the doors into opening. Whoever has rewired them has taken the time to learn standard SeeD security measures, and has redesigned the system so that none of our traditional tricks work.

_Whoever._ The word enters my mind like I don't already know. I know full well who's redesigned the system, and she's done a damn good job of it. It wouldn't be an efficient system for arming students in an emergency, but it clearly wasn't designed for practicality. It was designed to keep _me_ out, and it's doing that nicely.

I'm nearing the end of the rewiring when the world turns white around me. Everything seems to explode in a rainbow of colors, and I realize I've been struck, hard, on the back of the head. My face flies forward, colliding with the panel. There's a whooshing sound and the door to the locker flies open, so there's that at least.

I fall flat on my back. From my position on the ground I have a perfect view of my attacker. Again, like I didn't know. She's looking at me with this stupid little "I just punched you in the optic nerve" smile. I really want to wipe it off her face.

I kick to my feet and spin around, facing her. I recognize the pistol at her side as my own, the one I had custom-made for some covert operation or other a while back. I liked it so much, I decided to keep it. She could have shot me with it from behind, but didn't, wanting the satisfaction, I suppose, of killing me in a fair fight. Or more likely, the satisfaction of killing me with her bare hands.

We drop into fighting stances and fly at each other, my right hand arcing directly for her jaw. I always hated getting punched in the face – it's always been one of the surest ways to piss me off, and I'm hoping the same holds true for her.

That particularly inquiry has to wait, as she grabs my fist and wrenches, violently, flipping me. For the second time in under a minute, I'm on my back, staring up at the face of the woman who wants to kill me. This time, though, she doesn't hesitate, and her boot comes smashing down towards my head.

I roll aside, regaining my feet at the same time. On my way up, I take the opportunity to jam my hand into the back of her knee. She crumples slightly, and I grab her by the shoulders, driving my knee into her lower spinal column. It felt like it hurt. I hope it did.

I wrap my arms around her head, attempting to get enough leverage on her to snap her neck. Unsurprisingly, she has a different idea. She backpedals, slamming me against the wall. It's a little jarring, but I have a pretty good hold on her. Undaunted, she tries again, except this time, she doesn't aim for the wall. She crashes us into one of the windows, causing a hailstorm of shattered glass. Since I'm the first one through, I receive the worst of the cuts, but she doesn't escape unscathed.

She leans back, pressing me against the window frame with the weight of her body. It's uncomfortable, but not terribly dangerous. The fact that I'm reclining amidst a large pile of jagged glass supplies the danger. The shock is enough to make me lose my grip on her. She flips over and fixes her hands on my throat in a vise-like grip. As she's throttling me, she jams a knee into my torso and digs in, trying to grind me into the fragments, which I can feel digging into my back. There's a particularly large shard threatening to go all the way through me and come out the other side. Between blood loss and the fact that she's cutting off oxygen to my brain, I need to get her off me, now.

An ugly solution presents itself. I try not to consider the implications of what I'm about to do. I stop fighting the progress of the shard and go with it, even helping it. It protrudes from my chest and drives itself into Scarlet's kneecap, sliding – almost miraculously – underneath the patella and cutting into the ligaments there.

The pain must be incredible, but to her credit, she doesn't scream. She does, however, get the hell off my body, which was my intent in the first place. I manage to snap off the shard of glass at its base and rise to my feet. Scarlet's on the ground, trying to regain her feet and failing as her knee keeps giving way beneath her.

Now for the hard part. I reach my hands behind my back and grab onto the glass, gritting my teeth as it feel it dig into my palms. With every ounce of my waning strength, I pull, trying to move the shard back down its original path. The worst part is that I can't stop envisioning what it's doing to my innards. If I'm lucky, I'll have avoided major organ trauma, but I'm still bleeding badly.

As the glass clears my torso, I collapse to the ground. The process took more out of me than I thought. The floor around me is slick with blood and tissue. It feels like hours have elapsed since Scarlet stopped choking me, but it's only been a few seconds. I need to catch my breath, to do something to center myself, but I don't have that kind of time.

I look up at her, and she's standing again, advancing on me, reaching for the gun holstered at her side. And smiling. The bitch is smiling at me. Is this how I look when I'm about to kill someone? Because, if it is, I need to work on that. No wonder I'm single.

The gun is loaded. My little gun has a clear handle and the sides of the magazine have been cut away so I can see how many shots it had remaining without having to count in the middle of a firefight. Almost 300 changes to the basic design, and all of them made by hand. Damn, I love that gun.

She's ready to kill me. I can see it in her eyes. We're both having the same thought, that it's time to end the fight, because a war of attrition will only kill us both. Unfortunately, she has a gun, and she's aiming right for me.

A lot of Instructors wind up using my... exploits to further their lessons, but I occasionally find that they miss the point. Specifically, there's a time I found myself elbow-deep in a behemoth's mouth. Before he could rip my arm off, I grabbed a hold of his uvula and tugged, hard, ripping it off. Instead of biting me, he roared in pain, and I got my arm out with only minor lacerations.

Instructors use this as evidence that the battle is only over when you're dead, and as long as you're alive, you still have a shot. Honestly? I never saw it that way. The lesson _I _took away from it was that if you plan to digest my arm, I'm sure as hell taking a souvenir.

That thought flashes into my head as I see Scarlet starting to pull the trigger. She can shoot me, but I'll see to it that she pays the price. I grab the piece of glass, gripping it hard to keep it from sliding out of my hands, and lunge at her.

Every time I've been shot I have the exact same reaction: this is the worst pain I've ever endured. Each time is worse than the time before it, and this is no exception. It feels like every nerve in my body has exploded.

The first bullet slams into my shoulder, but I have anger and momentum on my side. I hear second and third shots fired, but I'm so close to passing out, so disconnected from my body, that I'm only aware of their impact in the most abstract of senses.

The tip of the glass enters her chest below the left lung. I note, with some satisfaction, that it's roughly analogous to the exit wound I'm sporting. But hers is about to get a lot worse.

I clamp down even harder on the glass, feeling it slice my hands open for what seems like the thirtieth time tonight. And I yank it, pulling it sideways as hard as I possibly can, slicing horizontally through her viscera. It feels good, at first, until I realize that it's not so much my strength slicing her open as it is gravity. My legs have finally given out, I'm starting to lose consciousness, and I'm falling to the ground, dragging the glass through her body with the weight of my body.

It's enough to take out her bad knee, and she collapses to the ground next to me. She's trying to force a hand into her wound, to stop the flow of blood, but the cut is too massive. It's ragged and wide and glittering with little chunks of glass.

My wounds are older, so I have the head start on dying, but given the seriousness of her cut, she's catching up rapidly. She's gurgling and choking on blood, and I start praying for unconsciousness to fall. I don't want to listen to her die. I don't want to watch her writhing on the floor trying desperately to think of something, _anything_ that can save her life. I don't want to see that moment of realization on her face, when she knows that nothing _will _save her, that her journey has come to an end.

I don't want to be aware of these things, because they're uncomfortably familiar. Her face is my own, and I'm watching myself die.

Darkness slips over me.

The weapons locker is open. Seifer and Zell will be along soon to arm the captives. They'll retake Garden. Squall will defeat Mallis.

That's comfort enough. It has to be.


	32. Voices in the Darkness

"Quistis? Quisty! Zell, get over here!"

"Seif—? Quistis? Shit, shit!"

"She's still alive. Her pulse is weak. We gotta do something."

"I'll work on the puncture wound, you do the bullets."

"I hope you can't hear me, Quisty, 'cause this is gonna hurt."

"She's lost a lot of blood, Seifer."

"Shut up, Zell. Just keep her breathing."

"Seif, this is beyond us. This is beyond first aid or magic. We need a real doctor. Kadowaki's downstairs with the other captives."

"We can't move her in this condition. Take the biggest rifle you can find. Clear a path downstairs and bring Kadowaki back up here. Tell the other captives to stick with you, to swarm anyone in the way. They can arm themselves when they get here."

"You want them to just throw themselves at Mallis's troops? That's suicide!"

"I am _not _going to lose her, damn it! Now go!"

"You got it."

"Shit, Quisty? What'd she do to you? It looks like you've lost enough blood for two people."

"We're here, Seifer."

"Everyone, grab a gun and get back downstairs!"

"How's she doing, Seifer?"

"Not good, Doc. She took three shots, a lot of shallow cuts, and I think she's got a punctured lung."

"You did the right thing. There. She's stable, at least enough that we can get her to the Infirmary. Will it be safe?"

"Safe as possible. Zell's got the troops to keep the way clear."

"I'll need your help, then. Remember, she's extremely fragile right now."

"There you go, Quisty. Safe and sound. The doc'll take care of you now."

"I'll do my best, Seifer. But... no promises. She's suffered a lot of internal damage. If you have any miracles stored up, this would be the time to cash them in."

"Listen to me, doctor, and listen very closely. You're going to stay here, and you and your aides are going to do everything conceivable to save her life. I'm going out there to make sure you work uninterrupted. When this is over, everyone in this room will be alive or everyone in this room will be dead. Are we clear?"


	33. The Question

Squall hurtled past the outer ring of Balamb Garden, trying to keep his parachute clear of the protruding spokes.

The winds surrounding the central spire defied prediction, even during the best circumstances. During storms, they reached terrifying speeds, whipping around the exterior of the building with howling force. Because of the maddening noise of the winds on the upper floors of the building, Cid used assignment to those offices as a mark of displeasure.

The winds seized Squall's parachute with an almost malicious intent, tossing him about like a child's plaything before slamming him into the side of the building. He scrabbled for purchase, grabbing the edge of the spire and attempting to pull himself up with his too-weak arms. Operating at diminished strength, he would have to fight to lift himself over the edge, let alone to drag the parachute with him.

He pulled with all his might and found himself suddenly buoyed, hoisted up and over the edge by the collar of his jacket. Squall, panicked, his vision obscured by the presence of a hand over his oxygen mask. When the hand pulled away, it took the oxygen mask with it, and Squall found himself staring into the eye that had haunted his nightmares for so long.

"Welcome home, boy," came Mallis's voice, alarmingly close to his face.

"Squall!" he heard Rinoa cry.

Mallis lowered Squall to the ground almost gently. Once Squall had steadied himself, Mallis released his grip and stepped back. Squall released his parachute and hurled it over the edge of the spire, reaching down to his side for Lionheart.

"You must be mad, Squall," Mallis continued, watching the parachute plummet to the ground.

"You're the expert," Squall growled.

Mallis considered this and laughed once. "In the time I have served my Sorceress there has been much insanity. Under normal circumstances, the extermination of SeeD would be nothing but a footnote in the history of my service to the Sorceress Adel."

"The madness ends now," Squall said.

Mallis whirled on him. "Oh, no, Squall," Mallis hissed. "It's closer to home than you can possibly imagine. Killing me won't end the madness."

Squall shifted into a fighting stance, Lionheart starting to glow blue-white. "I'll still enjoy it," he shrugged, launching himself at Mallis.

Purple flame encased Mallis's hands as he hefted The Scar. The massive blade swatted aside Squall's weapon with a jarring collision, but Squall clenched his teeth and redoubled his attack, striking low at Mallis's feet.

Mallis twirled The Scar and thrust it downwards, plunging it into the Garden's roof and blocking Squall's attack. As the weapons collided again, Mallis backhanded Squall, the magic-enhanced blow sending the younger man sprawling and causing him to lose his grip on Lionheart. The gunblade skittered across the rain-slick roof.

While one hand worked to free The Scar from the roof of the Garden, the other reached up to the sky, palm up, hand outstretched. Squall struggled to his feet as Mallis's hand closed, the gesture a pantomime of grasping something. Mallis tugged, violently, grasping at the air as if it had substantial weight to it. He snarled and pulled once more, and this time, the screeching of metal accompanied his efforts.

As one, Squall and Rinoa looked overhead at the source of the noise: Garden's outer ring. One of the protruding spikes had torn free from the ring and now hurtled through the sky, aiming for Squall with deadly purpose.

The SeeD commander threw himself to the ground, diving away from the impromptu javelin, which imbedded itself into the spot he'd occupied only seconds before.

Mallis laughed, a child delighted with his latest toy. He abandoned his efforts at freeing The Scar and reached both hands up to the sky, focusing all his energies on pulling spikes off the ring.

Mallis's laugh thundered over the shriek of tearing metal. The spikes fell like the rain that pelted them, a hailstorm of shrapnel in their wake. Squall, focused on dodging the girders and making his way to his weapon, dimly heard Rinoa scream as one embedded itself in the ground at her feet. He turned to face her, and the moment's distraction was all Mallis needed.

A spike caught Squall in the right leg, tearing through his thigh, shattering his femur, and burying itself in the roof. Squall howled in pain and Rinoa – whether through their sympathetic link or in genuine terror – screamed with him.

The rain of metal subsided as Squall struggled to free himself, trying to stand up despite his inability to move his leg. He clutched the spike in both hands, wrestling with it to no avail. Mallis watched him with a critical eye.

"That won't do at all," he smiled, reaching overhead again and, almost casually this time, plucking down one last spike from the devastated ring. This one, too, shot through the air at Squall, taking him in the left shoulder.

Still, Squall fought.

Mallis walked over to him, watching him writhe in agony. He crouched down beside Squall, looking at the fierce wounds, made infinitely worse by Squall's struggles. Squall's left leg lashed up, striking Mallis square in the jaw, snapping his head back.

Mallis stood, his face grim, as he passed his hands over the metal. The two spikes came to life, moving like nightmarish worms. The "heads" quivered for a moment, seeming to watch Squall, before plunging deep into his free limbs. They tore through his body, burrowing deep into the surface of the Garden, pulling tight across Squall's body so he could no longer move. They stopped moving, then, once again plain metal.

His arms and legs bound, Squall ceased to struggle, but Mallis could see the rage burning in the young warrior's eyes.

With slow, deliberate steps, Mallis crossed the roof, his footsteps echoing over the rain and the sound of Rinoa's sobs. He walked to The Scar and, with all his power focused on it, wrenched it free from the roof.

He whirled on Rinoa, her eyes glowing as she searched inside herself for Hyne's power. The spike in front of Rinoa came to life, hissing a metallic warning as it darted before her face.

"Don't do anything foolish, my dear, or you will find that metal lodged most uncomfortably through the roof of your mouth. I may not be able to kill you until you pass on your powers, but I can still hurt you. And I will."

Rinoa slumped back in her seat, but the spike remained animate, a cobra waiting for its chance to strike.

Mallis walked to Squall, talking slow, casual steps. He swung The Scar as he walked, the blade whistling in the night air. Squall found himself looking down the length of the enormous sword, the blade so tainted with blood that it had seeped into the metal. The cat's-eye gem in the hilt seemed to wink at Squall, watching him with insatiable hunger.

Mallis tilted his head, the vertebrae in his neck cracking. A smile worked its way across his face as he lifted The Scar, clutching it in both hands.

"It's been fun, but... goodbye, Squall," he nodded.

The blade arced down, ready to decapitate Squall. Mallis's grin threatened to split his face in half.

Several things happened at once.

Rinoa leaned forward, straining against her restraints, ignoring the metal monstrosity threatening her. She screamed with all the terror in her body, though if she screamed specific words, the raging storm buried their sound. Squall's voice joined hers, his rage forming a counterpoint to her fear.

Lightning shot out from their bodies, consuming The Scar, crawling down the blade, and roiling inside the hilt's gem, joining Sorceress to Knight through the sword.

The electricity did not treat Mallis favorably, blasting him with concussive force, knocking him away from The Scar. He flew across the roof, colliding with the imbedded metal spikes in the process, snapping them off as he passed. The Scar remained hanging in the air, suspended by the strange energy emanating from it.

As the lightning struck Rinoa, her eyes flashed, wings exploding out of her back, propelling her out of her seat and shattering her bonds as she took to the sky. The spike menacing her melted into slag as her will blasted it away.

The lightning had an equally profound on Squall. The spikes piercing him shattered as he rose to his feet. Fragments of metal flew everywhere, expelled from his body by the sudden onrush of magic.

"What... is this?" he asked, his voice richer, fuller, undiminished by the roar of the storm around them. The combined energy of Sorceress and Knight consumed him, mending bone and muscle. Strength flooded his body and Squall found himself floating, buoyed by raven's wings every bit as magnificent as the swan's wings keeping Rinoa in the air.

He lowered himself to the ground and Lionheart sprang to life, leaping to his hand from the other side of the roof, already glowing and humming with energy. The glow transcended its usual power, and Squall knew it came not from the energy crystals embedded in the gunblade, but from within himself.

As The Scar fell to the ground, Squall pushed his questions to the back of his mind, and dove at Mallis once more. The fallen Knight kicked to his feet with a snarl of hatred, wrenching a nearby spike from the ground. One foot slid back as Mallis gripped the metal in both hands, wielding it as a spear. He thrust it at Squall, who leapt into the air, landing on the spike and continuing his forward momentum by running down the narrow shard.

Undeterred, Mallis released the spike and seized Squall by the ankle with both hands. He swung with all his might, tossing Squall aside, throwing him into the door leading inside the Garden.

In doing so, Mallis had lost sight of Rinoa, who dove at him now. She opened her mouth and the sound that came forth had more in common with the roar of a dragon than any noise a human could produce. As Rinoa plummeted through the sky, the thunderstorm came with her, clouds nipping at her heels, lightning arcing around her.

The spike had fallen on Mallis's foot and he kicked it up into his hands, the purple fire engulfing it. Rinoa closed on him, arms outstretched, lightning reaching for Mallis when he struck, using the metal as a spear again, piercing Rinoa through one of her wings. The metal alone could not have harmed her, but Mallis's magic made it capable of tearing into her wings as easily as puncturing flesh. He wrenched violently away, pulling Rinoa out of her dive and slamming her into the ground. The spike impaled her by her wing and Mallis released it, focusing again on Squall.

Squall shot across the rooftop at Mallis, feet barely touching the ground as he ran. Lionheart glowed with the brilliance of lightning as it reached for its enemy. Mallis lifted his makeshift weapon once more, and the gunblade cut it neatly in half. Without missing a beat, Mallis used the two short rods and slammed them into either side of Squall's head.

The blow rattled Squall, and Mallis moved to strike again, but his second blow lacked power. He dropped the metal in his hands and looked down, to the gunblade protruding from his chest. Shock crossed his face as he closed his hands around Lionheart, trying to pull the sword out of his torso.

Squall held fast, keeping the blade in place, watching the blood pool around Mallis's hands as he struggled.

"My... queen..." Mallis growled, gritting his teeth as Lionheart sliced his hands open.

Squall's lip curled into a snarl as he pulled the trigger.

Mallis collapsed to the ground, no longer breathing.

Squall dropped to one knee, spent from exertion. He released his grip on Lionheart as he steadied himself. Gradually, his consciousness expanded away from Mallis's corpse to encompass the whole roof. He could hear Rinoa pulling herself free from the skewer confining her. He could hear individual drops of rain pelt the ground around him and the sound of Mallis's last breaths fleeing his body.

Rinoa came to him, enfolding him with her wings, and his awareness continued to expand. He heard the sound of his friends fighting in the Garden below. The Storm, operating at full efficiency, had driven the captives back into the Quad, and the sound of gunfire reached him all the way on the roof. He heard Seifer barking out orders and the sound of Zell humming something under his breath, keeping time with the battle. He heard Dr. Kadowaki and her assistants working with a forced calm, trying to keep Quistis alive. He felt the wounded, the terrified, the lost, all over the building, and knew he had to end it.

He shifted, attempting to rise.

_I have to_... he thought

_I know, _she replied. _I'll__ be fine._

He looked over at Mallis's body, defeated on the ground before him. He needed a sign, something potent, something to drive The Storm from his home. Words flickered across his mind.

"Cut off the head and the body will die," he murmured.

He stretched out one hand and The Scar sprang to life, responding to his will. He could feel its mass, the weapon too heavy for any normal man to lift. Bolstered by the strength of the Knights before him, though, it seemed almost weightless.

He lifted the enormous sword and brought it down, severing Mallis's head from his body. The Scar responded to this, writhing in his hands, the metal flowing like water.

Squall's mind reeled with visions, consumed by flashes of the Knights who once possessed the sword. He felt the death of Hyne, the taming of Esthar, the slaughter of entire cities of dissidents, the restoration of order and the spreading of chaos.

When he came to, the blade had changed, remade itself from a massive executioner's sword to a gunblade. It lacked the moving parts, carried no ammunition, but Squall could not mistake the shape.

_I am yours, _the blade whispered, the cat's-eye in the hilt seeming to wink at him. _Become the new Knight Protector. Wield me, and there will be wonders._

"No," Squall answered. "No."

With all his force, he cast the blade aside. It tumbled through the air and dug into the roof.

"Squall, look," Rinoa said, pointing to the sword.

All the blood on the roof – Rinoa's, Mallis's, and Squall's, had flowed together, moving like quicksilver. It congealed into a solid pool and started to rise until it had reached the height of a full grown man. The column of blood changed to rough red cloth, and Squall caught a glimpse of piercing eyes within.

A hand reached out and seized The Scar by the hilt. Two more hands caressed the blade as it vanished within the figure's robes. A fourth hand gestured graciously to Squall.

_Thanks, kid,_ came a voice that echoed within Squall's head. _Looks like I owe you another one..._

A sudden gust of wind picked up, and blew the red cloth away, a scarf floating on the wind. It danced on the breeze until it vanished from sight.

"They're waiting for you," she said, pointing to the ground below. The sounds of war echoed in Squall's ears as he lifted Mallis's body off the ground. He stepped to the edge of the roof and held the corpse high over his head, roaring a challenge to those on the ground below. With all the strength in his arms, he tossed Mallis down to the Quad, the body hurtling through space.

Squall grabbed Mallis's severed head and launched himself off the roof, plummeting down after the corpse.

Time in the Quad seemed to stop as the body slammed into the ground. The combatants slowly lowered their weapons as Squall swooped into the Quad, landing on the ground in front of Mallis's broken form, holding the head of the apostate Knight.

"Leave," he roared. "Now!"

The SeeDs redoubled their efforts and pursued the routed warriors of The Storm, harrying them on their way out of the building. As they broke through the front gate, they scattered, running for the cover of the forest to the east.

Seifer and Zell approached Squall as the enemies retreated. Squall started to slump as his wings faded.

Zell gave a low whistle as he looked at the imprint Mallis's body had left in the ground. "Hell of an entrance."

"I'll organize patrols in the morning," Seifer said. "I'll have the forest cleaned out by lunch."

"Rinoa's still on the roof," Squall panted. "Send..."

"I'll go," Zell volunteered. "I'll bring her to you in the Infirmary."

"Infirm...?" Squall's breath came in gasps as magic and adrenalin rushed out of his body.

"Yeah," Seifer said. "The Infirmary. You're not looking your best, and I'm sure Quistis would welcome the company."

"Good... idea," Squall breathed. He started to collapse as Seifer swooped in, supporting Squall's weight on his shoulder. "Let's... go."

* * *

AN: The penultimate chapter. One full chapter to go, plus epilogue. Stay tuned for the conclusion, folks. 


	34. One Thousand Words

Quistis moved the last stack of books into her duffle bag and zipped it shut. She stood for a second, glancing around her office to make sure she hadn't missed anything vital. She nodded to herself, patting the keys in her pocket once for good measure.

The door to the office slid open and Squall stood on the other side.

"I came to see you off," he explained.

She smiled a little and nodded her assent, "A welcome surprise."

He stepped through the door and bent a little, reaching for her luggage. "I'll get these."

She moved to stop him a trifle too late. He stood back up, armed with her possessions and moved back into the hall. She followed him and they set off to the elevator.

"Your limp is better," she observed. "Won't be long now and you'll be back in the field."

"I should be healed by now," he said, scowling, as the arrived at the elevator.

Quistis smiled, batting her eyes at him as she pushed the call button for the elevator. "I seem to remember Doctor Kadowaki telling you to take it easy and get plenty of bed rest."

Squall snorted his disapproval. "I have..."

"More important things to do, I know," she finished, stepping on board the elevator. "I'm sure she was well aware of the futility of _that _particular prescription."

They road for a moment in silence, before Squall spoke again.

"Before you go, I wanted to ask you something. "

"Hm?" she raised an eyebrow at him.

"How many... organizations are capable of spaceflight?"

Quistis shrugged. "Well, the government of Esthar, obviously. Us. Mallis did, but he's dead."

"_Apocalypse _was missing from the hanger, though."

"Right," she nodded, exiting the elevator and making her way to the parking garage. "So, whoever stole it."

"And?"

Quistis thought for another second, rummaging around her memory. "Right, the field exam. Those pirates with the orbital cannon, so they..." Her voice trailed off and she stopped dead in her tracks. "Shit. Shit, shit, shit!"

"I had the same thought," he said. They resumed walking.

"Mallis wanted it enough to come out of hiding the same day he started work at this Garden. I find myself curious as to the precise nature of that 'dangerous technology' you recovered."

"I asked Laguna."

"And?"

"He said he couldn't tell me."

"He's the President. Couldn't or wouldn't?"

"He needed to check with a few people first."

"Your father wouldn't have hired us for that mission without knowing what we were recovering. For all the work he puts into seeming ignorant, he's very well-informed. Hold on a second," Quistis said, reaching into her pocket for her keys, "I want to put the top down. Lovely day, shame to waste it."

"Selphie's been making inquiries," he continued, setting down the bags while she worked with the convertible's roof.

"Did you mention that her hero might be holding out on her?" Quistis asked. "That'd get her motivated."

Squall set the first of Quistis's bags in the back seat of the car. She flipped through her selection of music, deciding what to listen to during the drive to Balamb. Squall reached inside his jacket and took out a Garden Network Connecter.

"I had her throw together some of the early info, and I thought you might take a look at it."

Quistis whirled on him. "Oh, no, Squall Leonhart. No way in hell. Not a chance."

"Xu is still busy trying to sort things out with Esthar Garden, and you two are the best analysts we have."

Quistis climbed into the driver's seat of her car. "Then I suggest you call in your second-best analysts, because this? Not my problem. Not today. Should've asked me earlier." She slammed the door behind her, the gesture not one of anger but of finality.

"I missed my chance," he scowled.

She paused for a second then flashed him a smile at once sad and coy. "More than you'll ever know."

"Is there anything I can do to convince you to stay?" he asked.

"Nope," she replied, glancing out at him. "I have other matters that demand my attention. And I seem to be missing something." She pointed to the duffle bag at his feet. He picked it up and put it in the car. He walked around to the driver's side and stood facing her. She reached out and patted his hand, warmth in her smile.

"Don't worry," she said. "You'll survive without me."

He pursed his lips and for a moment, she could almost _hear _Squall arguing with himself. After a moment, he relented and smiled back.

"I know," he answered. "I had a good teacher."

At that, she melted a little.

"Take care, Squall."

"You too, Quisty."

With that, she started her car and drove off, leaving Balamb Garden behind her. The trip to Balamb – a brief journey on the worst of days – flew by, and before she knew it, she'd arrived at the town's docks. She parked her car and exited, bringing her bags with her.

She found Seifer seated on a bench overlooking the water. She followed his gaze over to one of the piers where Raijin and Fujin argued over a fish that, somehow, they'd _both _managed to hook. Quistis sidled up to her friend and sat next to him.

"Hey, blondie," he said, the grin evident in his voice.

"I should've known I'd find you surrounded by seamen. Where's your other half?"

He pointed down to the beach where a group of children had buried Zell up to his neck in sand. They ran around him in circles as he shouted threats at them. With a roar, he leapt to his feet, sand and children flying everywhere as he started to chase them. He grabbed the nearest two, one in each hand, and started running for the water, promising to throw them in the surf.

"You see what I put up with?" Seifer asked.

"He's good with kids," Quistis nodded. "They look up to him."

"Until they hit a growth spurt, at least."

One of Quistis's eyebrows darted up. "Was that a height joke, Seifer? Because I'm feeling a little short-tempered."

"Sorry," he conceded. "First day of your vacation. I hope my puns don't dwarf the enormity of that fact."

She groaned.

"It just doesn't stop with you, does it?"

He grinned. "You wouldn't have me any other way."

Quistis looked at him over the tops of her glasses. "I wouldn't have you at all," she smiled.

Seifer clasped at his heart in mock agony. "You wound me! Good thing you're leaving – I think we need some time apart."

"_I _need time apart," she said. "Alone. Away from Garden and SeeD and Mallis and the whole thing."

They sat in silence for a minute, each contemplating the unspoken meaning behind her phrase "the whole thing."

"You're sure—" Quistis asked.

"You were the only person in the room," he replied. "Living or dead, conscious or un-."

She frowned. "Her corpse'll turn up. I'm sure of it."

Seifer shrugged. "Fair enough." Then, changing tracks, "So, how long is this mystery vacation?"

"A long time," Quistis answered, smiling in pride. "I haven't taken a full leave since I became a SeeD, and under the terms of my contract, my vacation days add up."

Seifer whistled. "Not bad. And where—"

"Don't even think of it," she shot back. "That's the whole point of the mystery vacation. No one knows how to get in touch with me."

Seifer spread his hands. "Hey, it's me! You think I'd rat you out?"

She shook her head. "No. But everyone else is going to assume I told you, and, when something pops up, they'll start hounding you. This way, you don't have to lie to them."

He snorted. "So considerate. Not like it will matter anyhow – you'll get bored and be back here before you know it."

"What's that supposed to mean?" she exclaimed. "You don't think I'll last out the vacation? Maybe I'm going away to contemplate retirement!"

Seifer tilted his head back and laughed. "And what will you find to occupy you in your golden years?"

"I've always wanted to own an antiquarian bookstore," she huffed.

"Without casting aspersions on your considerable business acumen," he said, "you'd be the worst bookseller in the history of the universe."

Quistis opened her mouth to reply, but her indignation only manifested as a high-pitched squeak.

"Oh, come on, Quisty. You know what happens when you _sell _a book, right? The book goes away. It no longer belongs to you."

Her mouth clamped shut audibly. "You have a point," she pouted. "I guess I'm stuck committing acts of war to earn my keep."

Seifer reached out and mussed her hair. "You love it and you know it," he said. "Maybe not the war part, but the action and the challenge and the excitement."

She grinned a little, a hint of embarrassment crossing her features. "The company's not so bad either."

He spread his hands. "We do have our moments."

She glanced out to sea, to the ship she'd rented. "That we do." After a moment, she rose. "Well, I'd best be off. Tides and all."

Seifer stood with her, grabbing her luggage. "Sure, tides. I'll bet it has nothing to do with second thoughts about leaving."

"Hush, you," she scowled. "This is why I'm going away. I need to regain my air of mystery."

"Well, let's get you on your way, then," he nodded, heading for the yacht. "You sure you're going to be okay?"

"I'll be fine. I _do _know how to sail."

"I know, I know," he replied. "Just expressing appropriate concern." As she boarded, he stopped at the end of the gangplank. She turned to him. "Permission to come aboard?" he asked.

She rolled her eyes in mock irritation. "Granted, jackass."

"Hey! You outrank me. And I am nothing if not mindful of rank."

Quistis laughed once, putting her hands on her hips. "Tell me another one, funny boy."

He boarded the ship and set down her bags. "Why did the chocobo get kicked out of the bar?"

Quistis whimpered in anticipation of the inevitable, hanging her head in a gesture of submission.

"The bartender was worried about the size of his bill!"

"That's it," she said. "I'm leaving. Off my boat."

He nodded curtly and returned to the pier. "And before you ask, I swept it for bugs, and it's clean. No one will know where you're headed."

"Thanks, Seifer," she replied. She tossed her car keys to him. They flew through the air, describing a glittering silver arc. He snatched the keys and deposited in the pocket of his coat.

"Any other requests before you head out?" he asked.

She smiled to him as she prepared to cast off. "Tend the Garden."

He saluted in reply as her ship moved away. From the beach, Zell waved to her, both arms gesturing broadly.

"Goodbye, Quistis," she heard him shout. As one, the nearby children took up his cry, "Goodbye Quistis!" they mimicked.

She saw Zell whirl on them. High-pitched screams ensued.

Quistis turned her back on Balamb and steered her ship for the horizon.


	35. Epilogue: The Journey Home

The passage of time saw Quistis favorably entrenched on a remote island somewhere in the tropics. She rose when she wanted to, slept as late as she desired, and spent her days in blissful seclusion with her books. She put the recent battle for Garden as far from her mind as possible, the pink scar on her abdomen only occasionally reminding her of that latest brush with death.

No gunshots disturbed her rest, no blaring alarms or squawking calls to action. She had no papers to grade, no meetings to attend, no students demanding her help. No combat, no interrogations, no emergencies, no concerns or cares of any kind. Just Quistis, her thoughts, her books, and the ceaseless sound of the waves.

She was, in a word, bored.

Not that she could bring herself to admit this, of course. She preferred to believe that she simply needed time to get used to relaxing. After spending so much time firing on all cylinders, she felt it perfectly understandable that peace and quiet should seem alien to her.

As always, when confronted with a problem, Quistis had one solution: she sought to attain total mastery of whatever vexed her. She studied leisure with a vengeance. She worked day and night to attain a consummate knowledge of relaxation. She dedicated herself body and soul to the fine art of doing nothing and hated every moment of it.

One day, in the midst of her patrol of the island (decidedly _not _work, she assured herself, but a practical necessity in order to safeguard her privacy) she returned to her camp to a distinctive ringing tone. One that made her swear, audibly and with no small amount of vehemence.

The sound, she knew without having to look, belonged to a SeeD-issue portable phone. All members of the organization received one and carried it with them at all times. A marvel of compact technology, the phone was waterproof, heatproof, vacuum-proof, resistant to electromagnetic pulses, carried a built-in keyboard with full linkup to the Garden Network, a self-destruct mechanism in case of the owner's capture, and a homing beacon that could locate the phone at any spot on the planet.

For this precise reason, she had conspicuously not packed her phone.

She swore again, starting a mad scramble to the origin of the sound. She arrived at her luggage and tore through it, diving to the bottom of one duffle bag where she found the offender gadget, duct-taped to the side, buried within a pile of books. She ripped the phone from the bag and flipped it open, a litany of curses ready at her lips. She paused, took a breath, and summoned her sweetest disposition as she answered.

"Hello?

"Quisty," came the voice on the other end. "What a treat to hear your voice!"

"Seifer. You're behind this?"

"Perish the thought," he said. "Squall planted the phone. When he said he was going to contact you, I offered to do it instead. I thought you might take it a bit better."

"I see."

"So, how's the vacation?" he asked. "Bored out of your skull and awaiting the chance to return, no doubt..."

"Put him on, please" she said.

"Quistis," came Squall's voice after a moment. "Something's come up. It's urgent."

She smiled, flashing all her teeth. "Please listen to me, Squall. I am on vacation. I am enjoying a peaceful, relaxing furlough, far away from Garden, far away from anything urgent. I don't care how desperate you are, it can either wait, or you can find someone else to handle it."

"But—" he sputtered.

"Goodbye, Squall," she chirped. "See you when I get back. My love to everyone."

She flipped the phone shut and held it tight in her hand. She wound up with all her might and hurled it into the ocean, where it fell with a satisfying plop. Quistis folded her arms over her chest as she watched the ripples dissipate.

She stretched out in a nearby beach chair, taking up the book closest to her and settling in to read. When she realized she'd read the same sentence three times in a row, she rose again, cursing under her breath.

The phone. Waterproof and waiting and calling her home.

She took long strides, wading out into the surf, to the spot where her phone had landed. When the water was high enough, she started to swim.

FIN.

AN:

I am at once relieved and saddened to be finishing the stories that have consumed so much of my brainpower lo these many years. When I started writing, the project was supposed to have been a single story, a straightforward Quistis/Squall romance. As you can see, it grew into something more.

Thanks to all the readers who have kept me going, and who have been patient through my interminable delays.

Special thanks to Kate, my Knight, and Gayle, my Sorceress. I trust both of them will forgive my foray into sentiment.


End file.
